Having wanted to see this film for years, I finally got the chance last night at Anthology Film Archives in New York. And, as ludicrous as it is to "rate" a film like this, I give it a 5, as the film sits awkwardly between its lofty ambitions and appalling inability to live up to them.
Famously buried by Universal when Hopper refused to cut it into anything resembling a coherent narrative, -The Last Movie- is now probably more fun to watch as a document of the loony 60s/70s generation than as what it was intended to be, a Hollywood comrade of Godard, Herzog, or Jodorowsky. Tantalizingly visible for stretches (particularly the opening 30 minutes) in the final cut along with a more conventional narrative is a great avant-garde film about imperialism, Hollywood and the genre of the Western-- and with the use of local Indian populations, this places Hopper in -Herzog's- territory more than anyone else-- but what lamentably predominates far more often is ample filmic evidence of the intoxication and womanizing that render Hopper and his cronies as mainstream Hollywood as they come.
Almost unbearable are the absurdly monotonous stretches of glorious scenery set to insipid 60 faux-country ballads, and most especially the sequences of misogyny, which "American Dreamer" confirms as no accident. Hopper was transparently a monster in this regard.
What got me was the Godardian dimension of what was on screen, in the sense of all film being documentary. What the hell was going on during the filming of these different scenes? One actor is so drunk he can barely talk. The next is so coked up that it's like he's in a different film. Indians hold objects up to hide their faces from the camera-- a direction from Hopper, or their refusal to play along? The discombobulated editing, part-intelligent critique, part-drug-addled meltdown, only enhances the curiosity provoked by these odd glimpses into this bizarre, lost moment of studio-sponsored third-world hedonism-- which for me makes -The Last Movie- important, if not always pleasurable, viewing.
Famously buried by Universal when Hopper refused to cut it into anything resembling a coherent narrative, -The Last Movie- is now probably more fun to watch as a document of the loony 60s/70s generation than as what it was intended to be, a Hollywood comrade of Godard, Herzog, or Jodorowsky. Tantalizingly visible for stretches (particularly the opening 30 minutes) in the final cut along with a more conventional narrative is a great avant-garde film about imperialism, Hollywood and the genre of the Western-- and with the use of local Indian populations, this places Hopper in -Herzog's- territory more than anyone else-- but what lamentably predominates far more often is ample filmic evidence of the intoxication and womanizing that render Hopper and his cronies as mainstream Hollywood as they come.
Almost unbearable are the absurdly monotonous stretches of glorious scenery set to insipid 60 faux-country ballads, and most especially the sequences of misogyny, which "American Dreamer" confirms as no accident. Hopper was transparently a monster in this regard.
What got me was the Godardian dimension of what was on screen, in the sense of all film being documentary. What the hell was going on during the filming of these different scenes? One actor is so drunk he can barely talk. The next is so coked up that it's like he's in a different film. Indians hold objects up to hide their faces from the camera-- a direction from Hopper, or their refusal to play along? The discombobulated editing, part-intelligent critique, part-drug-addled meltdown, only enhances the curiosity provoked by these odd glimpses into this bizarre, lost moment of studio-sponsored third-world hedonism-- which for me makes -The Last Movie- important, if not always pleasurable, viewing.