THE LAST PICTURE SHOW (1971)
This movie from 1971 looks at America that no longer existed. The story is set in the tiny, dying town of Anarene, Texas, where the main-street movie house is about to close for good, and where a pair of high-school football players are coming of age and struggling to define their uncertain futures. There's little to do in Anarene, and while Sonny engages in a passionless fling with his football coach's wife, his best friend Duane enlists for service in the Korean War. Both boys fall for a manipulative high-school beauty Jacy, who's well aware of her sexual allure. But it's not so much what happens in THE LAST PICTURE SHOW as how it happens--the film so effectively capture the melancholy mood of a ghost town in the making. As Hank Williams sings on the film's evocative soundtrack and the film's moody black and white photography appears like a sad but unforgettably precious moment out of time.
The film follows the lives of both the kids and the adults. There's a reason that the movie focuses on the adults in the town, as well: Jacy's mom, coach Popper's wife, Sam the Lion - these people used to be Sonny, Duane, and Jacy at one time, and their hopes and dreams were put on hold just to live comfortably and safely in Anarene.
What did you think of the movie? Did the movie seem honest to you? Were you shocked by what you saw in a black and white movie? How honest was the film about love and sex? What were your thoughts about the film and how did the world of the adults contrast with that of the kids. What do the adults know that the kids do not? What does the future hold for the kids? What happened to the America of the John Wayne movies?
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