The Last Picture Show (USA, 1971)

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This is a true classic coming-of-age film. It also sheds light on the United States - what has changed and what remains the same. As we prepare for a new president of the USA, this film may help us to understand the deeper dynamics of the country.

This film struck a nerve in the US and somehow caught the US in a particular moment of time and history (it is set in Texas in 1951, during the Korean War, and was released in 1971 after the Vietnam War and the turbulence of the 1960s.) It showed how much had changed in those 20 years.

The Newsweek reviewer wrote "The Last Picture Show is a masterpiece. It is not merely the best American movie of a rather dreary year; it is the most impressive work by a young American director since Citizen Kane."

Non-American reviewers saw it differently.The Times (UK) reviewer wrote: "I suppose it is very good, actually, but I suspect that it will work with full force only for an American spectator. For it is above all an essay in nostalgia: not only nostalgia for a period, the early 50s, but also nostalgia for a place, a way of life."

The London Evening Standard reviewer commented; "It's to the great credit of Peter Bogdanovich that he has sketched a piece of folk history without folksiness. That he has found a precise point in time at which the confidence of America missed a beat and never again recovered its rhythm."

A must-see film.