Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the movie version of Larry McMurtry's The Last Picture Show.
DVD Review
The Last Picture Show, written by Larry McMurtry, starring Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Cybil Sheppard, directed by Peter Bogdanovich, 1971
Having just recently re-watched this great movie and after having kind of panned its sequel, Texasville (see post dated August 14, 2010), for no other reason (although there were more) that I liked the coming-of-age story of Last Picture better than the more recently experienced mid-life crisis (mine, and Duane’s) of Texasville I want to expand a little on the movie. A couple of years ago I gave it a few lines as an addendum to a review of Larry McMurtry’s book. Some of the points made there apply to both works, some to the film itself, especially in light of Jeff Bridge’s recent (2010) Oscar-winning performance in Crazy Hearts as Bad Blake-basically Last Picture’s Duane at 57.
****
There has been no shortage of coming of age stories in modern American literature. The late J. D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye is merely the most famous and probably widely known of the genre. Here Larry McMurtry, the Texas bibliophile, Old West aficionado and flea market pack rat gives us his take on growing up absurd in a faded, dust-blown, one-horse (and one movie theater) semi-boom (and bust)town Texas during the Korean War era in the early 1950's with his central cast of Duane, Sonny and the femme fatale, Jacy.
Although the locale is different from Catcher in the Rye, the issues raised by the teenagers who drive the stories and those of their perplexed and clueless parents are the same. And what do those issues entail? Sex, the meaning of existence, sex, what to do on Friday night, sex, what to do on Saturday night, sex- well you get the drift. And those dilemmas of youth and its fight for recognition as presented through the main male characters, Sonny and Duane, are in McMurtry's hands well thought out and, at times, poignant. The attention to detail that McMurtry is noted for is on full display in the interplay between the “jock” students (Duane), the nerds (Sonny, kinda) and the “in” crowd (Jacy). High school football, the whys and wherefores of the high school classroom and the sheer fight to find one's own identity in this mix all contribute to a very strong trip “down memory lane” for this watcher.
From my own personal experience I know how tough it was to grow up in the 1950's (the later part) and it is good to see that there are indeed some universal ailments that are common, like those mentioned above, to the “tribal community” called youth in America. Moreover, watch this movie because it also has a few things to say about the adults, especially Sonny's lover, the older woman and the football coach's wife Ruth (played by Cloris Leachman in a mostly understated but powerful role), and their dilemmas as well. Damn, McMurtry is singing my song here.
The film version of this book strongly evokes visually the points that McMurtry tries to make in the book. It helps that he was the screenwriter in this effort. Fine performances were turned in by the young Timothy Bottoms, who story is more central in the movie than in the book. Jeff Bridges, at the start of his illustrious career, is tailor-made for these "bad", misunderstood man/boy roles (see his role as Bad Blake in Crazy Hearts) and who gets less play here than in Texasville. And Cybil Sheppard as, frankly, a very “hot”, sex-crazed (maybe), high school teaser as the object of Sonny and Duane's attentions (and of a fierce rivalry for her “attentions”). Also a very fine old cowboy, symbolic dying Old West performance by Ben Johnson. Also by Cloris Leachman as, the above-mentioned, neglected abused dish rag of a coach’s wife and as Sonny's genteel influence, older woman lover. And all in black and white to highlight the dusty, main street is the only street, small Texas town grit and boom-bust oil patch ambience. This is high plebeian art.
No comments:
Post a Comment