FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Peter Bogdanovich - The Last Picture Show 

In the best scene of Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show, Sam The Lion goes fishing with Sonny and Billy. They go out to a lake you might call a hole. In the middle of the Texas prairie. Actually there are only turtles in the lake and no fish at all. But Sam doesn't care about that. He doesn't like fish anyway. "Try one? - Sam offers Sonny a hand-rolled cigar. Then he tells how twenty years ago he went to this lake with the girl he loved. They swam and rode their horses through it. Sam's girl, however, was already married and he hadn't been young for twenty years... As he tells, we realize that we are listening to the myth of Sam's life. His vision of beauty that keeps him alive in the wasteland of a dying city: Anarene, Texas. Sam, played by Western actor Ben Johnson, is the soul of Anarene. He runs the Diner, the Billard Halle and the Royal Theatre. The only places where there's anything going on. Otherwise you can only go to bed early in Anarene! This explains the lonely desperate adults of the city and the bored teenagers whose only pastime seems to be sex. Sam's protégés are Sonny Crawford (Timothy Bottoms) and Duane Jackson (Jeff Bridges), the heroes of the local football team. Peter Bogdanovich's film is set in 1951 - the Korean War begins and the time of the big cinemas comes to an end. But classic films are still running in Sam's Royal Theater, especially Western. Sonny tries to fiddle with his clumsy girlfriend in the cinema and Duane kisses the beauty of Anarene; Jacy Farrow (Cybill Shepherd). Meanwhile, the great Western classics that gave Texas its legends are running. Anarene is a place where it's either too hot or too cold. Sometimes the wind blows a few dried bushes through the streets. Bogdanovich has captured this scenario as if a great emptiness surrounds the buildings of the city. Infinite vastness, as in the classic Western movies. Duane and Sonny both have a home, but they almost exclusively hang around with their cars. Once we hear a lecture by their teacher (John Hillerman) about the power of beauty, the truth. But there is not a trace of it in her own life. Sonny's best experience is sex with an older housewife. Duane, on the other hand, is used by Jacy - while she is looking for a rich son from the neighbourhood. Finally, she attends the pool party of the rich idiot Lester (Randy Quaid), where she will unlearn in front of everyone... Jacys mother Lois (Ellen Burstyn) is rich and still attractive - although she lies on the couch most of the time, drinks and zips her way through the TV program. Lois is pragmatic, advises her daughter to just sleep with Duane to find out how little it means. Her own life is empty, the dream of escaping from Anarenes past. Unlike her mother, Jacy is nothing special. She loves sex and wants to settle down sometime. I think Bogdanovich's film can be called a sensation at its premiere in 1971. A sensation whose effect lingers to this day. The Last Picture Show looks old-fashioned on the one hand, but on the other hand also very modern. The pictures are based on the Hollywood classics of the studio system of the past. Bogdanovich gives these pictures a soundtrack with pop songs, which wasn't common in the early 70s. The songs of Hank Williams aren't just scattered. They run when a jukebox is operated: "Cold, Cold Heart". In The Last Picture Show the songs comment on the action. The faces of the actors were still unknown (except for Ben Johnson). They should be the stars of the future like Jeff Bridges. Bogdanovich has succeeded in making a tremendously honest film! While other filmmakers of the New Hollywood generation were striving for the greatest possible freedom, Bogdanovich drew back to the simple beauty of the big western. When I saw the film again, I noticed how many scenes deal with sex - but are not erotic at all. I think sex is only a means to an end for most people in Aanarene. They try to do the best they can for themselves - just like Jacy. In Anarene, however, life passes by. Only Sam The Lion keeps a secret of how it feels to love. Sonny and Duane will probably grow up drinking too much whiskey. Maybe they'll talk about the past. Jacy becomes an ordinary housewife and probably the wife of an entrepreneur. In the credits, Bogdanovich emphasizes his still unknown actors. Almost twenty years later he was to gather them together again in front of the camera for a kind of sequel. Many films will follow his example as portraits of Generations.