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Based on
the novel by Larry McMurtry, The Last Picture Show is a minor
classic that poetically captures the tragedies, comedies and
dramas of life in a small town. Calling this a coming of age
drama is far too simple. This film is about growing up and
discovering things about the people who make up your world.
It's about discovering whether they really are your friends,
or lovers. This movie is touching, funny, and it will make
you cry at times. Above all else, this film is genuine.
The direction
and writing here is fine, and the performances of the actors
are all great. Consider how many of the following names are
now widely recognized: Ben Johnson, Timothy Bottoms, Jeff
Bridges, Cloris Leachman, Cybill Shepard, Eileen Brennnan,
Randy Quaid, and Ellen Burstyn. The film was nominated for
8 Academy Awards, with Ben Johnson and Cloris Leachman winning
for Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress, respectively.
This terrific film deserves all the aforementioned accolades.
Video: How Does The Disc Look?
The Last
Picture Show is anamorphic widescreen and is presented in
the theatrical aspect ratio at approximately 1.78:1. The black
and white photography is harsh and highly contrasted as intended.
Detail is terrific and overall the presentation is very film-like.
This film wasn't made to look pretty, although it is beautiful
in an unforgiving way.
Audio: How Does the Disc Sound?
The Dolby
Digital soundtrack is presented in English 1.0 mono, and dialog
is always intelligible, although it sounds like ADR and is
often poorly integrated. The Hank Williams music that permeates
the soundtrack is well presented, and sounds like it's supposed
to...coming from juke boxes, lousy old car radios, etc. A
fine soundtrack of older material.
Supplements: What Goodies Are There? The supplements
here are very good. Trailers for The Last Picture Show,
Arlington Road and Starman (also starring Jeff Bridges) are
included. Also included are not one, but two documentaries,
a 6-minute theatrical re-release featurette from 1974 and
a newly produced (for the DVD) 64-minute documentary called
The Last Picture Show: A Look Back.
The first
is a bit of a bore, which mostly features co-writer/director
Peter Bogdanovich as a talking head going on about the movie.
But The Last Picture Show: A Look Back, written, directed
and produced by Laurent Bouzereau, is outstanding, offering
new interviews with most of the people involved in making
the film. The only annoying aspect of this piece (but perhaps
reflective of real life) is that while Cloris Leachman won
the Academy Award, and Ellen Burstyn was nominated, this documentary
spends far more time talking with and about Cybill Shepard!
Whatever!
Talent
bios are also included for all of the principals, as are
English Captions and Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean
and Thai subtitles.
Final
Thoughts
The Last
Picture Show is a rather low budget film, and many of the
decisions on the video and audio were made to be artistically
spare and that's reflected here. This movie looks and sounds
as good as it can. Throw in the nice documentary and trailers
and this is a terrific presentation of a great film. Hats
off to Columbia yet again.
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