Sunday, February 21, 2010
ELEGY
Today's NYTimes Best 1176 film and Jeff Bridges selection was Peter Bogdonavich's
This examination of sadness and loss in a small, dying Texas town is now a classic.
It still packs a punch.
I am surprised at how deeply it still affects me.
Perhaps this is because I came from a dying town at the same period but I don't think so. The music is right out of the radio that I played in my bedroom. No one else in the house wanted to hear any of it.
The cast of this film, relatively unknown at the time, is the heart and soul of the thing.
Timothy Bottoms, Sam Bottoms, Ben Johnson, Ellen Burstyn, Clu Gulager, Cybill Shepherd and, best of the lot, Cloris Leachman.
There is a lot of crap written about this film but there is no overstating its impact at the time. It has many firsts including the music, no one had done that. It has a lot of real residents of the town where they shot it. This is cinema realité American style. It is very much of the "new wave". More with less. Show don't tell. All that.
Part of the crap written about the film is this second review that Ebert wrote comparing this film with Citizen Kane.
Jeez. Even my main review man can go over the top and off the reservation.
The last picture show is Red River which I still remember from the first time I saw it as a kid.
Theis film still gets a 5 out of Netflix5. Sonny and Duane still rule.
I put up with the watermark to use this picture. It is so apt.
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040704/REVIEWS08/407040301/1023
Labels: best films, films
