95. The Last Picture Show

"He was sweeping you sons of bitches! He was sweeping!" - Sonny Crawford

So sorry for the gap, school started back up and I'm already struggling to balance assignments, work and time to retain sanity and step back from it all. This past weekend we finally got back to the list and watched The Last Picture Show. According to the DVD case, it is a tale of teenagers in a small Texas town who face "sexual and social mores." I had to use the cover slip's words because no amount of paraphrasing could say, "The movie is about everyone wanting to get it on." Then again, I'm also putting it quite blunt, but each character's sexual life directly influenced their public lives. Let's get a summary going here:

The plot revolves mainly around Sonny Crawford while his best friend Duane follows as a second, but minor, main character. The two are fairly popular and well-liked in this community set in the 1950's. Of course, the community was closer then those portrayed today. (Small towns in movies today seem to harbor nothing but novelty serial killers or right wing religious fanatics. I'm looking at you, Silent Hill movie.) Getting off that tangent, the people are nicer and trust each other more which really allows for more characters to be involved and more is known about them. This is pretty awesome for the audience of course because we are really just nosy neighbors as these characters' personal lives are revealed. Every detail they know, we know about sooner, such as the affair between 18 year old Sonny and 40 year old Ruth Popper*. The women in the movie were pretty intriguing really. The film really revolved around sexual freedoms and taboos, so to have these young girls with the ideals of the 1950's and these older women who are wanting to just break free. The teenagers seem to WANT to go all bases, but they are still reluctant or want to use sex as a gateway to marriage. Taking Duane's girlfriend, Jacy, for example, she just wanted to lose her virginity and have everyone know it. I'm going to be blunt again and tell you all she was a slut.

The rock in this movie was Sam "The Lion" who owned a few businesses in town. You could really tell that he was a constant and strong character, but I am going to use Wikipedia's description (I know, I know) of him as the conscience of the town. He knows what is right and wrong and he sticks with his morals, and serves as a father figure to some of the boys of the town. He was just one of those necessary characters that really balanced the plot out.

I really did enjoy this one. I don't think this movie helped usher in an age where sex is featured more prominently in cinema, but I would not be surprised if it helped greatly. I was pretty excited though to see one from the 70's. My screenwriting teacher talked about how this decade was considered to be one of the greater eras of film, and really utilized the power of silence. I'm hoping the 1970's don't let me down along the way of the list though, so far, so good.



*It was awkward to write. It is awkward to read. You better believe it was awkward to watch.


Next movie: Pulp Fiction (1994)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulp_Fiction_(film)