A Poignant Journey Through Time: The Last Picture Show
The Last Picture Show is a portrayal of an American small-town society of the 1950s and, in point of fact, North Texas specifically on the verge of its transition. Chronicles the teenage years of the two main characters Sonny and Duane along with experiences and trials in love, and suffering in the blue-collar town that looks to embraced its traditions through football, a cinema that is closing down and characters such as Sam, the old lion. Like the level of the ‘town deterioration’ paralleling with the social and economic death of the town, Sonny as well as Duane have put together a disappointment and erectile dysfunction, archetypal of the climax of the adolescent initiatory phase with the closing of the town cinema. The mood depicted within 1985 can be once again, identified as touching and depressing revealing the simply innocence and the sorrow of life. The movie captures the spirit and the yearning of the prewar America mixed with the desire and the march towards the future, loss that is so familiar with everyone. All the characters depict a yearning and a desire for the past within the scope of a provincial town. The young actors, Bridges and Bottoms, constantly convey the moods between teenagers, and Leachman’s portrayal of the role of the insecure Ruth Popper is shocking in her sincere emotional performance which got her an Academy Award.
The director Peter Bogdanovich shows the skill in recreating the exact setting and the era while focusing on the characters and their emotions. Larry McMurtry’s novel gets the powerful and touching performances from cast and his capacity to translate quiet hopelessness of the story into beautiful visuals is brilliant. Bogdanovich’s sincere work dramatizes the deterioration of America’s small towns in this engaging story.
The music choice of the film also puts one in a fifty’s setting using popular songs of the 50’s. The music increases the tension and emotion that proceeds to build and shapes the sentiment of the film to match the lives of the characters as they start to unfold.
Through artistry, the black and white cinematography by Robert Surtees brings more of a deeper dimension to this movie, as with the reflection is a prevalent theme in the film. This adds a certain ambiance that places the audience right into the setting of Texas and its desolate landscapes and destruction of the central business district which is in line with the theme of the movie’s decay. Everything is as it should be: the costumes are accurate to the historical events the film depicts, and so are the vehicles and the background; this oppressive feeling of timelessness and time passing unavoidably is embodied by Michael Mann’s direction. Simplicity of graphics decision is right in sense of chosing every single beat of the movie which is based on people’s emotions. The scene changes are perfect for depicting time, too, and are needed to maintain the right pace in the shift from juvenility to the experience of the bitter truth. It is intentional to make the audience sense the passing of time and look at the transformations of the characters’ lives.
The conversation in the movie feels organic and is in the typical language of the 1950s setting in the state of Texas. Likely, that is why the dialogues are full of many underlying tones and subtexts, which tell about relationships, desire and disillusion more eloquently than the storyline itself; While The Last Picture Show is undeniably one of the most impressionable and inspiring works of cinema, the main drawback of the film is a high degree of its boulevard slowness. As the show advances some characters do not go through clear character development and their motivations as well as their ultimate fates are ambiguous. However, these elements may also appeal to spectators who like to focus on the realistic and the uncertainty of life.
The Last Picture Show is a rather emotional movie, and when you watch it, you become in a sentimental state of reverie. The depictions of youthful affection; the conventional pressures that shall be felt; the departure from childhood; all resonate with spectators and impart a contemplative nature as a sensibility about our own lives and homes.
