Peter Bogdanovich’s “The Last Picture Show” is a film I feel deeply.
Every time I return to it, there’s always a sense of going back to an old town, recognizing how it used to look and considering how life has changed so much since the last time I visited. Because the film is frozen in time, as every film is, but portrays the past with a sense of regret and nostalgia, it hits harder than most films that are designed to create inner reflection.
Taking place mostly in Anarene High School and in the living room and bedrooms of the town folk, we’re introduced to a cluster of teenagers and their parents living in Anarene, Texas of 1951. The teens are a piece of work but so are their parents, who we learn were once every bit the troublemakers their kids are.
We meet Ellen Burstyn as Lois, the life-weary but still glamorous mother of Jacy, played by Cybil Shepherd. Cloris Leachman is Ruth Popper, a lonely widow who becomes infatuated with Sonny, played by Timothy Bottoms- Sonny is basically the film’s central character.
There’s also a gawky young Randy Quaid as Lester, Jeff Bridges as high schooler Duane Jackson (Bridges is baby-faced but still sounding the same), Clu Gulager as the questionable Abilene (Gulager was a charismatic scene stealer) and Ben Johnson’s Sam the Lion. The latter actor has a killer monologue, with Bogdanovich’s camera pushing in on his beautiful speech.
The citizens of Anarene read Colliers Magazine, watch “Father of the Bride” (1950) at the one movie theater in town, attend all the town’s social rituals and all carry secrets. It’s based on Larry McMurtry’s 1966 novel of the same name, which is said to be semi-autobiographical and based on his experiences in Archer City, Texas.
This is a lived-in environment, as nothing we see looks like a set. Bogdanovich’s film is one of the essential works of the 1970s, a time when the director and screenwriter were calling the shots.
“The Last Picture Show” is observant, honest, character-driven and sublime.
Bogdanovich’s approach, in that the film replicates the look of a film from the 1950s but is unflinching in its depiction of sexual discovery and betrayal, separates it from most movies that offer a look back at the past. It’s striking to watch a film that looks like it was made during the Golden Era of Cinema but features sexual frankness and a contemporary eye.
Some compared the film to Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane” (1941) because it was, likewise, a debut film shot in black and white. If anything, Bogdanovich’s film compares to Welles’ in that it was a first movie that towered over everything else in his body of work.
Welles aficionados will probably state, as I often do, that “Citizen Kane” is still fantastic but no match for the compromised but amazing “The Magnificent Ambersons” (1942) and Welles unbeatable, utterly fantastic “Touch of Evil” (1958).
In a similar way, “The Last Picture Show” deserves distinction as a perfect film, though Bogdanovich not only made the comparably stellar “Paper Moon” (1973) afterward, but his “Mask” (1985) is one of the best films of the 1980s.
Like Welles, Bogdanovich’s cinematographer makes sweeping moves and captures arresting angles that surprise for how striking they still are.
Few filmmakers who proclaimed themselves students of Welles and Hitchcock were actually at this level. Bogdanovich’s best works demonstrate his tremendous skill at film craftmanship, as well as a simpatico and trust with actors.
For a story about young people and the adults in their lives doing rotten things to one another, the compassion of the story always gets to me.
In the first scene, Sonny’s date bares her breasts for him, then is furious when his fingertips are too cold. Even during the most sexually frank moments, McMurtry keeps it honest and real. There’s lots of sexual discovery and humiliation, but the point is contrasting the difference between sex and intimacy.
Burstyn’s performance, which wasn’t the most acclaimed when the film was initially in release, is my favorite in the film. Burstyn conveys so much here. She has a killer line: “Everything gets old if you do it enough. Learn about monotony.”
The final scene still devastates me – when Duane leaves town and Sonny is on his own, that’s when things begin to crumble for him, almost immediately.
“The Last Picture Show” portrays the agony of change and loss. The former aspect is reserved for the long-gone movie theater, in which the camera lingers in a few shots, while the latter is Bottoms’ late brother. The final fade out speaks volumes, as Sonny is the town, his story a pillar, whereas Duane escaped.
America still looks like this; I’ve spent lots of time in towns in Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado that have more than a passing resemblance to Anarene. From my experience, the people who live in very small towns are either grateful for the quiet and passionate about their town, or just feel stuck and don’t know quite how to part with a familiar way of life.
I love visiting places like that and meeting people who love where they are. At the same time, I know how Duane feels, as the stillness and compact environment make me want to drive away and keep going.
Bogdanovich creates a sustained, confident style, with sudden tonal shifts that hit hard but always work. I had the great joy of seeing “The Last Picture Show” in 2005 at the great Mayan Theater in Denver, Colorado. Seeing Bogdanovich’s film in a theater is a joy that I hope other cinephiles can experience.
On the other hand, while “The Last Picture Show” remains a powerful work, there is a sequel.
Based on McMurtry’s 1987 novel, Bogdanovich’s “Texasville” (1990) reunited most of the cast from the original film, taking place 33 years later and is set in Anarene during the Reagan era. Bridges’ Duane has returned to Anarene, where he runs a successful business and now has Ruth as his secretary.
Duane’s marriage to Karla (a terrific Annie Potts) is rocky, and it seems that everyone in town is still bed hopping and failing to keep their personal lives from falling spectacularly apart. The one exception is Sonny, who seems haunted and numb by his past.
When Jacy returns to Anarene for the town’s centennial, it rattles Duane, but also gives him a sense of perspective his aimless life has otherwise lacked.
Long out of print and yet to be fully appreciated for its highly unusual approach as a sequel, “Texasville” is, like its predecessor, quiet and observant, farcical in tone but never as funny as it thinks it is. Instead, it has these quiet, profound moments, but it finally fizzles out at the end.
It’s too good to dismiss, but it’s never as great as it should have been.
As in the original, it boldly resists the temptation to make the characters likable. The episodic nature of the story makes it feel fragmented, rather than having the varying plot points meet together, as it did in the original.
When “Texasville” arrived in theaters during the fall of 1990, “The Last Picture Show” was out of print and had not even been released on videocassette at that point. Not seeing the first film diminishes the strengths of “Texasville.”
Yes, the sequel is little more than a literal high school class reunion for the characters, but what a worthy reason to have a film!
Bogdanovich stumbled with farce in his later years, as the skill with slapstick that highlighted his “What’s Up, Doc?” (1972) was not always present in subsequent works. For example, whereas “Noises Off!” (1992) worked, “Illegally Yours” (1988) did not.
“What ‘The Last Picture Show’ (1971) did was establish me. I didn’t have to make another picture. I could have just lived off of that one, or I could have kept making the same picture over & over.”
— Peter Bogdanovich pic.twitter.com/kgXu9MIrTl
— DepressedBergman (@DannyDrinksWine) May 4, 2024
Instead of creating a contrivance for the characters to run through, McMurtry allows them to show themselves for who they are. Not all of the performances are great, but the best of “Texasville” is in the way it creates a continuity between the films that is honest.
Too many sequels fail to justify their existence, but this one does, simply because we want to know what happened to those characters. What we see, even at the film’s broadest, is telling, sad and fascinating.
This time, McMurtry’s screenplay is semi-plotless but still lively, just as the high school reunion is in the movie.
What Shephard and Bottoms do here is extraordinary – the former gives an earthy, compelling performance as a woman in charge of her life, while the latter never resorts to grandstanding to portray a man who has lost his way since the events of the first film.
Time has made Jacy tough and smart, whereas the years have caused Sonny to fade. I wanted more of Leachman, though her scenes here are delightful. There’s no Burstyn, as her character has been killed off.
“Texasville” is often more shrill than funny, as the flimsy narrative comes apart at the end…or maybe it just resists consistent narrative structuring and finally bellyflops when the obvious climax is presented.
The big nothing of a climax might just be exactly the point – as the camera pulls back and the crane shot gives us one last God’s eye view of Anarene, we’re once again noting the passing of time, and how little changes and how those in this mini-universe also don’t change that much, either.