The Last Picture Show

Peter Bogdanovich’s elegiac, erotic tale of coming of age and changing times was hailed by some as the Citizen Kane of the New Hollywood Cinema. Combining in fresh, evocative fashion the new sexual permissiveness of its era with the movie-brat generation’s love of classic American filmmaking à la John Ford and Howard Hawks, The Last Picture Show, based on the semi-autobiographical novel by Larry McMurtry, is set in the early 1950s in a small, dying Texas town. The local movie theatre is on the verge of closing; the local young men, on the verge of finishing high school, vie for the prized hand of affluent beautiful Jacy, played by model-turned-actress Cybill Shepherd in her first movie role. The film impresses with its finely etched characters; the great cast includes Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Ellen Burstyn, Cloris Leachman, and John Ford regular Ben Johnson. The latter two won Oscars; the film’s eight Oscar nominations included Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, and Cinematography, plus four for supporting performances. Bogdanovich made the film in black-and-white at the suggestion of his mentor (and then-houseguest) Orson Welles. The use of perfectly chosen period tunes to evoke the times was innovative. B&W, 35mm. 118 mins.