The Last Picture Show

Released 1971
Stars Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepherd, Ben Johnson, Cloris Leachman, Ellen Burstyn, Eileen Brennan, Randy Quaid
Directed by Peter Bogdanovich

The opening and closing shots of Peter Bogdanovich's "The Last Picture Show" are among the most famous in cinematic history: slow pans across the dusty, deserted streets of a dying Texas town in the early 1950's, the opening shot beginning and the final shot ending on the town's lone movie theater. The difference between the two shots is that in the opening scene, the movie theater is still in business; when the movie closes, so has the picture show, and so has a distinct era in American history.

Framed between these two shots, Bogdanovich and Larry McMurtry, who wrote the novel on which the film is based, weave the stories of several of the town's inhabitants, painting a sharp portrait of the banality of small town life which offers nothing great for which to aspire. Anarene is a town where nothing much ever happens, and the movie theater is the only source of escape for its inhabitants. The only other escapes in town are ultimately destructive: adultery, drinking, gambling. When the movies die and give way to television, the end is inevitable.

For its time, "The Last Picture Show" was a shocking film, not only for its frank treatment of sex and nudity, but also for Bogdanovich's decision to film it in black and white. By the time the film was made in 1971, color had become a mainstay and a major American film hadn't been made in black and white for over six years. Bogdanovich chose to shoot the film in this manner because it immediately conveyed the time and place of 1951; in fact, "The Last Picture Show" almost looks like it could have come from the fifties. Plus, the sharp black and white photography by Robert L. Surtees (who had already won Oscars for both color and black and white cinematography) makes the dusty, West Texas plains and small town locations seem all the more desolate, and it allows for camera techniques like deep focus that just weren't possible with color film.

Summary by James Kendrick

This film is bleak. There's not much present or future for any of these characters in this dying town, and that leads to unhealthy sexual dalliances to relieve the boredom. The story and characters are meandering, but that's the point. The movie is about the town and the situation more than the characters. The black-and-white photography is beautiful and perfectly fits the mood. --Bill Alward, July 4, 2001