MovieChat Forums > The Last Picture Show (1971) Discussion > One of the greatest

One of the greatest

posted 8 years ago by lindaeq
3 replies | jump to latest

This film put BBS (the producers) at the top of international film reviewers and critics list of great American cinema. They (the filmmakers known as BBS) were referred to as the American New Wave.

BBS, had just had success with Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, and many more films.

I weep at the sheer brilliance of The Last Picture Show. Peter Bogdanovich was a film historian and used his massive knowledge of cinema to create this masterpiece.

If you cannot see this perhaps you need to do more homework regarding it's sucess at cinematic communication. I fear it may have gone a bit over your head.

[–] randyhndrsn 8 years ago

Yes, the influence from John Ford and classic Hollywood is amazing, Bogdonavich didn't even get along with a lot of the directors of his time and loved the old timers much more and TLPS really captures the feel.Still, the modern aspects of the 70's are extremely powerful and leads to deeper commentary and the film is a fine example of how timeless a classic American film can be and why we should always study the original masters.

[–] thbryn 8 years ago

It was good on a number of levels. And yes I'd be surprised if most
of those nuances didn't go over the viewership's head but what do you
expect. The public aren't film students (or psychologists).

Kisskiss, Bangbang

[–] Synergetic11 7 years ago

There's no question whatsoever that it's a masterpiece and furthermore it's FULLY appreciated by the widest possible audience for a film of this kind of amazing Wellesian quality. 30,000-plus people voted it a a very high rating of over 8.1 on IMDB. Not that IMDB votes are an indication of any real quality whatsoever since for every movie they get right, they get a hundred wrong, but in the case of this film they happen to be right. This film and the very few others like it that both find a wide audience and are pure cinematic art, lift up and fine tune the vision and tastes of a sizeable segment of a whole society to an artistic level, a level that starts to value and actively look for highly-skilled expansions of form and metaphor as very beneficial spiritual science, as new more detailed maps and navigational tools for previously unexplored areas of the symbolically sign-posted landscape of the soul.

The real question is:

What happened to Bogdanovich after the 1970s?

How did his talent almost completely disappear to the point where he is now little more than a pretentious hack and has-been?

I guess the same question can be asked of other 1970s burnouts who had managed to garner wide popular appeal without sacrificing artistic talent, people like Coppola, Hal Ashby, Michael Ritchie, etc.

Did the 1960s and 1970s zeitgeist itself, by providing fertile soil, play the largest part in making these artists what they were, similar to all the legendary 1960s and 1970s musical acts who are now but mere shadows of their former selves?