Alexander Tuschinski
I was originally attracted to "The Last Movie" as "Easy Rider" is one of my favorite films. Since I saw that director Dennis Hopper after "Easy Rider" collaborated again with Laszlo Kovacs and other cast and crew members, I had wanted to see "The Last Movie" for a long time.Well, it is certainly very different from Easy Rider in many respect, though the cinematography and editing are very similar. Personally, I love all the experimental edits; the switches between an almost documentary look and stylized, beautifully composed shots. Scenes are edited precisely to sound effects and music, and the cinematography has a beautiful, "playful" and unconventional feel to it. One example that stuck in my head is the moment that Kansas is first introduced riding on his horse. We start in a closeup, then the camera zooms out and pans to reveal him riding away into the distance - but unlike most films it does not stay in that framing. Instead, without cutting, it suddenly pans down across some flowers until we cut to the next shot.The story and narrative style are entirely different from "Easy Rider", and the film needs multiple viewings to be fully grasped. To be honest, after the first viewing, I did not really like "The Last Movie", but it stuck with me because I kept thinking about it and eventually watched it two additional times within a few weeks. Each time, I noticed (sometimes important) details that can not be understood at the first viewing. And after each successive viewing, I liked it more. In a way, "The Last Movie" reminds me rather of a piece of almost abstract art than of a "classic" film which would be about a storyline that can be summarized easily; "The Last Movie" is constructed like a puzzle, revealing many thoughts and ideas only after the audience is thinking about them for a while. I suspect that might be one of the reason for some of the bad reviews it got: People judging it expecting a "regular" film with a more or less classic storyline and emotional attachments to characters, instead of a rather abstract work. In an interview shortly after the NY premiere, Dennis Hopper himself suggested it might be best to watch the film 2-3 times to fully grasp it. When I first heard the interview, I had thought it might be a pretentious thing to say, but after watching the film, I do agree.The structure of "The Last Movie" deconstructs classic cinematic narrative approaches. A lot of details are presented almost in passing, easy to miss during the first viewing. For example, when a stuntman falls from a horse in the Western being shot, we can see an extra being worried that he is really dying, seemingly not understanding that it is acted. Upon second viewing, I noticed that the "extra" later in the storyline actually becomes the "director" of the Peruvian villagers. But even during my first viewing, I found the opening 20 minutes brilliantly executed. I feel it is best to enter the film without knowing the storyline first, because then the opening is especially innovative and enigmatic. We start with Kansas (Dennis Hopper) with the Peruvian villagers in the movie sets, then cut to a Western in the 1860s (which might appear like a flashback into the past when one first watches without knowing the storyline ), then to Kansas on a horse and during a party- and after a while, suddenly, in a magnificent shot, it is revealed that the Western is actually a film that is filmed in the storyline, and all is tied up.I do find the film's strength in its opening and ending - particularly the ending brilliantly deconstructs any sort of narrative structure. It starts once Kansas suddenly - almost embarrassed - reveals in a dramatic moment that he has no wound make up, covering a spot where he had been shot earlier that now features no traces. From then on, it becomes an almost abstract work, showing outtakes, people getting in and out of character, which I found beautifully executed. My favorite moment is actually right towards the ending, when we suddenly see the camera filming the burning villagers' "camera". There, we can see how Laszlo Kovacs adjusts the framing, looks for a good spot - all the material between "good" shots that would normally end up on the cutting room floor is suddenly inserted, giving us a subtle but unexpected glimpse into the filmmaking process. As I myself often edit film, it was very interesting to suddenly see such a moment included. The middle part of the film is where I feel it loses focus partially. The film appears to be not about relating or emotionally connecting with characters, but about the more abstract ideas behind its construction, appealing almost entirely to the audiences' intellect rather than emotions. Therefore, hardly any characters are explored in depth, and even emotional scenes (like Kansas running with his girlfriend to a beautiful soundtrack after the Western wrapped) do not really allow any lasting emotional impact. When Kansas decides to stay back in Peru, the viewer at first can sympathize with him, and his love story with a local prostitute appears touching in a few beautiful moments. But in the course of the film, him and the people around him appear more and more flawed and unlikable, which culminates in him beating his girlfriend and trying to make up by getting an expensive coat for her. The way the characters in the middle of the film are constructed I felt might be a deliberate attempt to distance the viewers emotionally from the them, thus preventing viewers from getting "lost" in the storyline, which would be a kind of almost Brechtian approach that is also supported by the fragmented narrative (though, the middle has a more conventional narrative flow than beginning and end). I personally prefer the approach of "Easy Rider", which mixed more thoughtful, abstract moments with more emotionally relatable ones (the farmer, the commune, George Hansen, etc.). There were no parts in "The Last Movie" that gave me the sort of emotional positive "relief" that the mentioned scenes/characters gave me in "Easy Rider". The closest equivalent to a likable character in "The Last Movie" were intially Kansas (until the middle) and maybe the priest, who - in the beginning - appeared to be a voice of reason in chaos and tries to prevent violence. But - as all characters - he is also not really explored, and during the ending, his character, too, becomes very different, as slowly the narrative structure is deliberately "eroded", creating an emotional distance between viewer and that character, too.All in all, I find that "The Last Movie" is a film with many subtexts and thoughts. Putting its focus on a rather intellectual approach makes it less accessible than "Easy Rider", but very interesting nontheless. Its very experimental approach certainly was unexpected to many viewers, and I personally also prefer "Easy Rider "- but respect Dennis Hopper's work in "The Last Movie" as the work of an artist with a strong, unconventional vision for this particular film, making it more of an abstract arthouse film with a "European" vibe. I am quite sad that Dennis Hopper didn't do more films right afterwards with the same crew - I like his visual style of the period, and believe him to be a very talented director - the competence with which he handles scenes of many styles (like the incredibly staged and filmed Western shootouts) demonstrate his abilities to direct scenes of various genres, and it would have been interesting had he done more "emotionally relatable" mainstream compatible films right afterwards. I watched a murky VHS copy, and really hope that the film will be reissued soon on Blu-Ray or DVD - I would certainly buy it as I feel there might be more things "hidden" in the images that are necessary to "decode" more of the storyline.
mlraymond
I doubt that there are many viewers who have actually seen this film. I saw it back in the early Seventies, having already read bad reviews of it, and therefore was prepared for a poor film. What I had not expected was something that is little more than a home movie with a fairly interesting drama beginning it, only to lose its way and end up being literally nothing. SPOILERS AHEAD:We are led to believe that Kansas will be literally crucified by the villagers as a literal Christ figure, and then that plot line disappears completely. There are a couple of sequences that indicate Hopper might want viewers to see Kansas as the bad guy, rather than the hero, but these are so underdeveloped as once again, to go nowhere. The actual ending of the movie is so vague, to put it mildly, we're not even sure if Kansas is supposed to have been killed. The next to last scene shows Hopper arguing with a couple of actors, as all three pass a bottle of booze back and forth between them. The two drunken actors laugh at Hopper when he tries to get them to finish the movie. Then follows the anticlimactic "ending", in which Kansas is seen staggering down a road and falls, presumably dead, presumably having been shot by some unseen assassin. Then the words " the end" appear, looking like they've been written on the film with a felt tip pen. And that's it. How Hopper persuaded the studio to release this thing I'll never know, but the sheer gall of a filmmaker to expect an audience to pay cash to see a movie with numerous intertitles stating " scene missing" is beyond belief. My biggest criticism is that potentially, there's an interesting story here that could have been made by competent filmmakers into a small but worthwhile film. There's the germ of a real movie lurking somewhere amongst all the wasted celluloid and ludicrous non-characters and pointless dialogue. The fact that Hopper overcame his drug and alcohol problems, and is now acclaimed as a genuine filmmaker, with some real movies to his credit, as well as some good acting in other people's movies, is something for him to be proud of, but this movie is not. A fascinating mess, worth seeing once out of sheer curiosity, but pretty dull and stupid. Only for fans of real turkeys like Ed Wood's movies.
