The Last Movie (1971) User Reviews

the rabid, passionate and pretentious insides of Dennis Hopper '71

[Quinoa1984 · 6/10 · 13 July 2009]

A little credit is due (I guess): Dennis Hopper made it huge with Easy Rider, took his momentary carte blanche and made, for all intents and purposes, a movie he wanted to make. No holds barred is putting it lightly. It's like Hopper stumbled over the bars while on acid and just let the natives come around and stomp on it till the term 'hold' was soaked in alcohol and set on fire. It's cinematic anarchy that reigns with a sword of originality and hubris, and it's always coming right from Hopper's soul. The Last Movie, this said, is not a very 'good' movie. I'm not even sure it's "anything" of value. But it's surely one of those must-see "personal" movies all the same. For any film buff it's simply stunning - and I don't mean that fully as a compliment.

In a way I feel sorry for this production. Hopper did have a script, somewhere, and even had a writer with him as well, Stewart Stern, and the opening 25 minutes of the film is fractured but feels contained in its "meta-movie"-ness. It seems actually clear enough to follow: a film crew is in Peru filming a movie, a western, directed by none other than Samuel Fuller, and there's lots of intensity on the set and, at other times, weird vibrations in the off-hours. Hopper is a stuntman who works on the production, but once it ends he sticks around, and sees the Peruvians re-enacting the film that has just been made, only with "equipment" made of sticks and stones and other things. So far, so good, more or less, and, again, Samuel Fuller directing a movie in a movie! It can't get much cooler than this can it?

As it turns out, there is even more story and scenes that make sense, such as the romance (or lack thereof) between Hopper's Kansas cowboy and a Peruvian woman, Maria. These scenes, along with the rough seduction of Kansas to another woman who happens to wear a mink coat, rang true past the weird intentions of the film-making and into the personal for sure. Hopper in real life shouldn't matter in the course of the movie itself, but it is so self-reflexive on the end of making the meta-movie that it spills over into his real life with women (when you see it you'll understand). That, plus an allegorical storyline involving a foolish and failed attempt to go gold mining, seem to at least add emotional grounding for chunks of the picture.

And then, other times... it's just drivel, repetitive movements and rhythms and sudden things like "Scene Missing" cards. The problem that Hopper didn't see while editing, not while hopped up (no pun intended) on enough drugs to run a mega-pharmacy on the moon, is that the meta-movie qualities and his flourishes and mad jump cuts and time reversals and non-linear-ness don't always serve in favor of the actual story. There are certain moments and scenes that stand out wonderfully, and are even filmed and edited with scary precision and capturing the beauty of Peru (oh, and the opening gunfight as part of the movie-in-movie is amazing). Other times, it's just tricks and things, devices and obstacles that just add dead weight to the running time. It's non denying it's art, but is it always interesting? No. Sometimes, it just sticks out way too much as being "important" art, forced when at other times it could be natural and fitting for the already strange premise.

It's basically this: a very talented filmmaker (and for all of his ups and downs in his career, more downs than ups, not least of which the stigma that followed Hopper after he made this movie and didn't direct another for nine years) and an unlikely and electrifying actor, got loaded with all of the praise that someone like him didn't need, already cooking with loads of free-loader friends sticking too many hands in the creative pot, and, in the end, got in the way of himself. A lot of The Last Movie burns with raw energy and crude dramatic thrills. And the rest of the time, it just looks like it needed an editor, ONE editor that was sober to go along with the one other sober cadet on the production, the late-great Laszlo Kovacs as DoP. Alejandro Jodorowsky might be a kind of genius, but an editor for someone else's project he definitely isn't.

So should you see it? If it's available (it's hard to find) and you're willing (maybe do a coin toss) and you aren't expecting a John Ford movie (please don't), give it a shot. It's not an easy movie to defend, and I probably can't on a reasonable level. But as a personal statement of an artist on the edge, you could do worse (i.e. Southland Tales, the only thing that comes closest in ambition and faulty technique).

Not nearly as bad as I thought

[Jill-68 · 6/10 · 11 February 2001]

This movie isn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. But I don't know how to recommend it, or to whom. Do you like Dennis Hopper? Well, here he is, in almost every scene, and he never looked better. A beautiful face, the graceful cowboy. In fact, he appears so genuine in this film that I begin to realize what an acting job he was doing in Easy Rider. The scenery is haunting, and the movie has a poetic, lyrical rhythm....yet sometimes seems to go on too long, and the mind wanders....but I loved the feel of it, the primitive environment of the Peruvian village, the ever-present mud....contrasted with the lewd and crude wealthy Americans. And I happened to enjoy the home-movie aspects of this film, also. I delighted in picking out Dean Stockwell, Peter Fonda, John Phillip Law, etc. in the Hollywood on Location shots....I loved the spontaneity of the last scenes of dialogue....hell, I loved seeing Kris Kristofferson sitting on a rock singing Me & Bobby Magee....but would anyone else?

THE LAST GREAT NON-LINEAR MOVIE OF THE GOLDEN ERA

[noelartm · 7/10 · 15 April 2001]

The Last Movie would have been much better if Dennis Hopper hadn't let his hippie friends in the editing room. If the scenes where rearranged in a chronological order rather than being non-linear as it is, it would have stood a chance. However, the late 60's/early 70's (which many critics consider a "golden era" in filmmaking) was a time of experimentation, so if Hopper wanted to be self-indulgent he was in the right time at the right place. This is one title that begs to be recut. I would suggest a DVD with the original cut on one side and a new directors cut on the other. It would be fascinating to hear Hopper's audio commentary for further insights into where his mind was at the time (if he is capable of remembering, that is). By the way, this movie won first prize at the Venice Film Festival, so it wasn't the total failure (artisticly) that many critics have tried to make it out to be. I personally like it. The only other non-linear film I can think of from that era is HEAD(1968) which was far more succesful in terms of structure, or rather, non-structure. Had these films been commercially successful they might have revolutionized filmmaking, or at least spawned a non-linear film genre.

Build Your own Layers

[tedg · 17 April 2006]

Rarely does an opportunity come like this. I would like to encourage you to share it.

First, you should know that I am not representing this as a "good" movie. At the same time I am putting it on my list of "films you must see."

How can this be?

This thing fails to engage emotionally. It is unlike, say "Blue Velvet" which had both a visceral connection and an ephemerally complex narrative. Each reinforces the other way past the horizons we can see and understand, and you end up with a life altering experience. Most of the films on my "must see" list are like this.

But this is different and the missing factor is "The Other Side of the Wind." That movie is Orson Welles' last project, what he considered his greatest reach and most perfectly conceived. Welles' innovation was the exploration of multiple narrative techniques in the same weave, and then denoting them by distinct visual modes. Sort of a meta-"Peter and the Wolf," but with light.

We'll never see that movie and it is just as well because it is more life altering in the imagination than it ever could be in the real theater experience. While Welles was noodling around with windsides, he engaged every intelligent filmmaker then living, Godard, Huston, Franco and yes, Hopper.

Hopper is an absorber of ideas, not a generator and I believe his sponge absorbed some of that wind and that is what we have here.

There are a few clever notions:

—A movie as a re-enactment of a history that is a re-enactment of history of a movie.... all as religion.

—A man whose life is a bad movie, the guy behind the faux movie within, portrayed by someone whose life is a bad movie.

—A style of revealing that critics bluntly tag "nonlinear," though it is anything but. It just doesn't follow any timeline in a single reality but jumps realities.

Each of this represents a phenomenon I call folding and the three are themselves folded. That it doesn't emotionally engage us is a minor sin. That much of the construction was incompetently done by the drunk portrayed in it is less a sin than a charm.

Now. If you have clever moviewatching skills, you can add a fourth and fifth engine to this. Your own movie, of course. Any serious watcher will do this anyway, with any movie, but there is a seductive socket here for you to enter, much like the testy prostitute Kansas finds.

And of course, on the other side of your film, you have Welles'.

Ted's Evaluation -- 4 of 3: Every cineliterate person should experience this.

Seeking A Movie in Dennis Hopper's 'The Last Movie'

[TheFearmakers · 7/10 · 7 January 2019]

Within Dennis Hopper's infamous post-EASY RIDER flop, THE LAST MOVIE, are several movies with great potential had they been more fleshed-out - or if at least one took center stage...

These include an American-made cowboy picture being filmed in the main location of Peru where a stuntman dies, leading Hopper's character, Kansas, an extra and stuntman, caterer and acquirer of horses, to deal with the conscious-brooding aftermath... A psychotic local, after witnessing the Western being made, filming his own makeshift movie with bamboo cameras, actual punches pulled and real gunshots fired without blanks... A melancholy priest dealing with how his small town is altered by the Ugly American production, having come and gone with all its bogus yet influential, shoot-em-up violence... A gold-seeking expedition-plan between Hooper and his scruffy (future OUT OF THE BLUE) sidekick Don Gordon... Or our moping American film-worker falling in love with a beautiful Peruvian prostitute, Maria, played by natural beauty Stella Garcia...

The latter holds the most value since it's the only subplot with actual layers. which includes a pretty, classy, uptight yet progressive wife and daughter of a broom factory owner: the first awkwardly seduced by Hooper's Kansas in THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON scream queen Julie Adams and TV actress Donna Baccala as this non-linear, documentary-style odyssey goes from the gorgeously green and/or canyon-backed Peru exterior to a grainy night on the town, as an unrefined love triangle ensues: Hopper's lady-friend, Maria, hired her workmate... future COLUMBO victim Poupée Bocar as a bisexual nightclub singer... to entertain the ragtag group. And the following daytime scene involves a seemingly important conversation about Don Gordon's supposed gold mine followed by a quick, unrealized trek to find it - lasting less than most scenes would need to begin...

And on the movie-within-a-movie's set, since Hopper's Kansas is merely a caterer, having to provide alcohol to the selfish and raucous cast and crew while brooding outside of both the real and fake film's perimeter, it could be this LAST MOVIE is Hopper's way of not only being a dissociated artist but playing one in his own disassociated motion picture...

One telling moment and perhaps the best scene overall has Kansas demonstrating to the insanely-inspired Peruvian "director" how a beaten-up actor should throw a punch instead of continuing to bloody each other up. After which this director/dictator informs Kansas that his picture isn't fake like the Western that Kansas worked on...

Perhaps the askew logic is: Since those bamboo camera's aren't actually filming anything, real life isn't being captured like the kind of trickery... or "game" as the priest calls it... that inspired this local violent mockery. In other words, anything being recorded for posterity is futile and worthless compared to the real thing: just as Maria is more of a real person than Kansas. The problem is that both the actual-fake and fake-fake movies are all being filmed, and have to seem real to the audience. So Hopper's attempt to make a distinction between the two are somewhat futile in the end...

Either way, the misplaced yet strangely intriguing bedlam leads to a rushed third act that ultimately implodes upon itself... Especially in one scene as Hopper sits with the two leading Peruvian/Spanish characters... the priest and the loco-local director... and says, with finality, "To Hell with it!"

In actuality, this irritated exodus - after Kansas becomes a bloody martyr/captive of the Peruvians violent "passion play" (taking on the same expressive guilt he did concerning Jack Nicholson's EASY RIDER death during the acid trip) - is entirely redundant: Symbolically, Hopper crashes and departs from his own party while drowning with a life-preserver on...

If he had had more fun and action within the chaos instead of so much art-house distraction, we, the viewer, could have shared in that pandemonium as if it were ours as well as the director's. Experiencing a voyeuristic catastrophe that only a genius could make is more of an addictive and bizarre, awkwardly intriguing journey than an insightful or overall effective one. Thankfully, the timeless, legendary and groundbreaking road classic EASY RIDER had an actual destination, which was, within the story, tragically unfulfilled. So maybe, just maybe, THE LAST MOVIE was Hopper's next step after having nowhere left to go.

Where satire in and about movies meets an existential end....

[RJBurke1942 · 7/10 · 1 June 2019]

Is it merely coincidence that this, The Last Movie, was released in the same year as The Last Picture Show?

The two movies are not just poles apart from the narrative perspective. The former, under review here, is an episodic, disjointed, confused and confusing series of vignettes about the making of a western, quasi-documentary style, if you will. And followed by reflections (and even occasional white-on-black SCENE DELETED frames within the continuing story) by Kansas (Dennis Hopper), about making the movie and its effects upon the local populace; and finishing up with a personal search by Kansas for ... gold, literally and figuratively. This movie was awarded Best Film at Venice in 1971.

The latter you probably know of and have perhaps seen. At the 1972 Academy Awards, it won two Oscars for Best Supporting Actress (Cloris Leachman) and Best Supporting Actor (Ben Johnson); and was nominated for six other Oscars.

The interesting aspects of TLM are: the picturesque setting in the Peruvian mountains; the strong cast of well known actors - Hopper, Peter Fonda, Don Gordon, Dean Stockwell, Russ Tamblyn, Julie Adams, an aging Rod Cameron, and even Kris Kristofferson in his first - very brief - screen appearance; the Peruvian locals who performed with studied, calm impassiveness; and the sound track containing various ballads and typical Peruvian music.

On the other hand, the plot - i.e., the sequence of events - is somewhat haphazard, to put it kindly. Although, as with all good narratives, the end actually begins and - almost - ends the story. In my opinion, the first part, about the final shootout of the western, is a sly satire of that genre, in a number of ways: the action scenes by the outlaws and others are ridiculously over-the-top; Sam Fuller (a real director of movies) is delightfully camp in the role of director; and the presence of a wanna-be local man as 'director' with local 'assistants' performing an outrageous parody of a filming crew must be seen to be fully appreciated. That is a brilliant touch by the screen writers and is sufficient, alone, for me to recommend this movie.

The story and movie fails, however, after the western movie is wrapped - in the first 20 minutes or so. After that, Kansas remains in the area and gets involved with the local talent, and other Americans, looking out for just a 'good time' with the usual feminine delights. And also, where he gets involved in a wild goose chase to find gold in them there hills and mountains. So, I'll leave it to you to find out exactly what happens to Kansas.

It's not a movie that can compare to The Last Picture Show, as I said. But it's still worth seeing as an example of the type of fakery that invades all our lives as we traverse our own existential search for identity, reality and security. Here, though, I think Dennis Hopper also succeeded in displaying much that is stupid, unsavory and false about the movie business.

So, see it if you can. Give it seven out of ten - mainly for Hopper's performance and his moxie for making the movie, in the first place. But, with graphic male and female nudity a few times, for adults only.

laughably incoherent

[mjneu59 · 3/10 · 30 November 2010]

Dennis Hopper's now notorious second feature fulfilled the promise of 'Easy Rider' by doing to his career what those Southern rednecks did to his character at the end of the earlier film: blasting it to an early grave. Given the disposition of its maker and the attitudes of his era it's not surprising the film took shape the way it did, but unlike the more unified mess of his debut feature (in retrospect a happy accident) this sophomore effort is merely chaotic: an ill-conceived, sloppily executed, helplessly edited riot of unintended laughs.

There's a germ of an idea here about the essential artifice of movie-making (in which the film itself finally disintegrates into random outtakes), but the director painted himself into a creative cul-de-sac by envisioning a project that had to fail in order to succeed. And fail it did, famously so, putting all of Hopper's drug-induced limitations on public display. Seen today, it's a fascinating example of professional self-destruction, and a laughable catalogue of hippie flotsam scraped from the bottom of the '60s barrel.

They Don't (Dare) Make 'em Like This Any More

[Krustallos · 9/10 · 12 January 2005]

It's difficult to see why people have such a hard time with this movie. Anyone who is interested in European art cinema of the '60's or even the novel since Joyce should have no trouble reading the film on at least some levels. Hopper's method here is to try and get inside the head, to put thought and memory on the screen, not just pictures.

Part of the problem may be the sheer complexity. There are probably enough ideas crammed in here for a dozen movies, and Hopper throws them all at us, often simultaneously. There's a story about American imperialism, there's a story about the artifice of film-making, there's a story about the way audiences view cinema, there's a Christ allegory wrapped up with a general sacrificial victim theme, a story about men and women, sex, money and power, there's Hopper's own story, the story of cinema itself, there's a satire of Hollywood conventions in general and the Western in particular, very notably there's a story about the Peruvian landscape, ravishingly shot by Laszlo Kovacs. There's even the story of Hopper's gofer lost in a society he doesn't understand if you want a simple narrative to hang on to. The film combines all these facets into a structure which can only be described as crystalline.

Devotees of "folding" should find plenty to occupy them here - there's the film about Hopper's character "Kansas", the film Sam Fuller is making, the villagers' "film", "The Last Movie" itself, an on-set home movie and probably several others besides.

Hopper gaily references (and steals from) everyone from Fellini and Godard to John Huston and Nicholas Ray, and of course goes bonkers in Peru well before Werner Herzog got around to it (and appropriates tribal culture in a strikingly similar way).

Definitely not a film to be missed by anyone interested in fractured narratives, postmodernism in film or the beautiful image. Vastly underrated and well worth its Venice prize, this is to "Easy Rider" what "Pulp Fiction" is to "Reservoir Dogs". Hopper as a director has never been better.

Could've been a South American Wicker Man

[vonnoosh · 7/10 · 9 November 2021]

I didn't know but I am not surprised to learn that over 40 hours of footage was shot in the making of this movie. Virtually any kind of movie can be made with that much material to work with. Screwball Comedy, Dark Comedy, Light Drama, Melodrama even Horror. It all depends how you edit it. Kind of like the manufactured plots in reality tv shows. It's all down to editing

What you get here is something that is sort of like a precursor to Wicker Man but in another part of the world and with different results. Locals mimic the making of a Western that was just shot in a strange ritualistic way. How we get to that point is a bit of a surprise because much of the story seems to be about one of the stars of the western staying on the location to settle with a local woman and discover gold mines. Then comes the bamboo film equipment.

If the goal was surrealism, Hopper nails it. If the goal was to be anything else specifically speaking, then that's still unclear. I was interested enough to keep watching and was surprised with how things shifted. The ending felt a little open ended. I can't call this a great movie but it has alot in it for me to want to revisit it and make more sense of it or a different sort of sense of it. Maybe my interpretation was a little off. Visually, it is fantastic. Peru is a genuinely beautiful country and very well captured here.

Pretty audacious for an American film

[mobia · 8/10 · 7 August 2003]

Stunt double (Dennis Hopper) is on location in Peru making a Sam Fuller western and stays behind to hatch 'get rich quick' plans only to find himself starring in a ceremonial movie of the natives. The big difference is while Hollywood violence is fake but the camera equipment is real, here things are reversed: the camera equipment is fake (fireworks make the camera reels spin) but the violence is real. Crazy imaginative production frequently goes off on hallucinatory tangents and the editing is creative to say the least. Easily the most interesting of Hopper's films. Alexandro Jodorowsky is rumored to have helped with the massive editing job.

An incoherent mess....

[planktonrules · 1/10 · 25 April 2011]

"The Last movie" appears to be rough footage strung together--possibly from several different incomplete films. The first portion just starts on the set of a Sam Fuller film and is very rough. Then, abruptly, this ends and one of the film crew (Dennis Hopper) stays behind in Peru and the rest of the film are his VERY random adventures. Some of the lovely things that occur to him or around him include: the locals making a 'movie' using fake equipment and real violence, some rich Americans showing up and acting like obnoxious capitalist swine (as they pay local women to have sex with each other as they watch), Hopper's prostitute girlfriend demanding a refrigerator (and many other things) even though they have no electricity, Hopper beating up this prostitute for no apparent reason, Hopper's friend (Don Gordon) talking on and on and on about his gold mine and several other irrelevant plot elements--none of which make up a coherent whole.

The only reason I saw this film is that I have a crazy quest to see all of the films from the Harry Medved book "The Fifty Worst Movies of All Time" and this is one of the last five I have yet to see. In some cases, the films in the book were laughably bad--such as "Robot Monster" or "Santa Claus Versus the, Martians". And others, such as this film, are just plain bad--and not in a fun or enjoyable way. And yet, like some of these truly terrible films, some people find great significance and meaning in the film. I read through the reviews for "The Last Movie" and it sounded like a Fellini or Truffaut film--full of brilliance and insight. All I saw was a lot of very rough and poorly filmed footage strung together rather incoherently because the people making the film were reported very stoned throughout the production--which is very, very easy to believe. Instead of a film, this is more like bits and pieces of many films thrown together rather randomly--and in the process, some actors embarrassed themselves--such as Gordon and Julia Adams (of "The Creature From the Black Lagoon" fame).

The film is an incoherent mess--randomly edited, with long and pointless musical interludes that were intended as deep and meaningful, completely amateur acting throughout and no discernible script. A few of the many plot elements COULD have been the basis for a good movie--such as the idea of Hollywood or American consumerism destroying a native culture. Too bad 2/3 of the budget was apparently spent on drugs instead of writers, directors and actors.

This may not be the very worst film I have ever seen, but it's sure in the running. I would say it was the film that wasted its budget more than any other and I would also say it was the most incoherent film I have seen--and with over 10000 reviews to my credit, that's saying a lot.

It's a shame, as Hopper's previous directorial project was "Easy Rider"--a film with amazing depth and insight. So, it's obvious that he could have done better and did do better when he was using less drugs.

A vastly underrated film.

[jesse3 · 4 February 2004]

I watched this film twice. The second time I watched it I was simply trying to figure out why I liked it the first time---but like it I did. Usually I don't like this kind of film, because I think they're pretentious. (NORTHFORK, as an example.) I think if ten people watched this film, those ten people would take ten different journeys and wind up at ten different destinations--so I can only describe what I felt---and it really was, for me, strangely enough, only a feeling.

For me it boils down to this: I'm from Oklahoma. During the early years, growing up in the great American heartland, the moral compass is very clear for most people. But the feeling, as you grow older (and migrate away from your roots), that with each season something precious is slowly draining away, and that things you care deeply about become like sand dunes that change shape and form with every rising sun---and there seem to be a progressive sense of loss---loss of the north star, reference points, meaningful trails in your life, until one day you are forced to stop and ask yourself, "Where am I, and what the hell do I care about anymore?" That's when you go to the pound and adopt a dog. I'm sure that my response to the film had absolutely nothing to do with what the authors intended, but I liked the film very much, and can't help but feel that this film is vastly underrated and was never given a fair chance.

The American Dreamer is an American Artist

[juniormike · 10/10 · 23 August 2007]

'Watched the film tonight again. After 20 years. EASY RIDER being among my three all-time favorites, I knew there would come the time, when I appreciate THE LAST MOVIE for what it really is - AN AWESOME EXPERIENCE, one of the most interesting films of the 70's and an important work of film art. Seems that time was tonight... :)

I loved it, at the same time it hurt. The film finally should be widely available, a dedicated SE DVD as for Fonda's HIRED HAND (that too is much much better than people thought years or decades ago... great film).

Hopper first went out to become the greatest actor in the world. He maybe could have been, but his character made it impossible for him to act after great early successes. He became a photographer. Could have been one of the greatest photo artists ever. He basically stopped because he became a film maker. He could have been right next to the most famous & successful directors in America. The faith of THE LAST MOVIE stopped him from that. YET, in all of these (and more) professions he became a top-player, an Icon, a forerunner and a master. An inspired creative human being, an enrichment to my life.

US movie industry leaves wreckage in Peru

[bs1 · 8/10 · 1 February 2000]

This is a great movie that explores the consequences of the raging US bull Movie Machine rampaging through the Peruvian countryside. If we were to look at the consequences of our egoistic society, we would be truly ashamed. Might isn't right, unless you are in early '40s Germany or mid '80s America. Looking at the truth is painful and not usually pleasant.

Probably the worst movie ever made

[davidmvining · 1/10 · 21 November 2019]

This might be the worst movie I've ever seen.

Dennis Hopper became famous with his directorial effort Easy Rider, which has, honestly, not aged particularly well. It's more of a cultural artifact than an example of great cinema. The financial success of the film was undeniable, though, and Hollywood decided to keep investing in the new golden boy. They didn't throw tons of money at him, but enough for him to take a crew to Peru where he built sets and filmed...something.

I think this may be the most distilled example of a movie conceived of, filmed, and edited while super high through the whole process.

It's obvious that the movie was massively changed in postproduction. The non-linear nature of the story is obviously not intentional, and the movie's filled with gaps both large and small. There are missing bits of scenes to simply establish what's going on, who's talking to whom, and then there's the gold expedition that starts and ends, but never actually happens.

I don't know if there's any way to actually break down this movie into narrative pieces, but there are images, some of them interesting. Like the group of natives who turn the filmmaking process into a sort of religious ceremony after the film crew in the movie packs up and goes back to America. That's sort of interesting, but Hopper does nothing with it beyond some vague conception that movies are replacing morality and religion, or something. The idea, what little there is of it, is hardly explored and has nothing to do with anything else.

The title of the movie is an issue as well. When releasing a movie that purports to break every convention (including basic sense) and calling it The Last Movie, there's a heavy implication that this thing is going to change movies forever. It implies a huge ambition to alter the face of cinema, but when the movie comes out as incoherent and unwatchable as this, it becomes a mark of shame. Hopper seemed to shoot so very high but ended up crashing very very low. That disconnect between the film's ambitions and its actual execution is really what gets me. Hopper simply wasn't talented enough to pull this off.

While watching, I kept thinking of Orson Welles' The Other Side of the Wind. Welles, who had spent decades making movies from scraps, decided to throw out convention and build a movie out of pieces he assembled over years (including bits with Hopper). Welles understood storytelling and filmmaking and was able to take the tiny little snippets he collected and assemble them into something cohesive. Hopper is not at that level, tried to do something similar, had no idea what he was doing, and fell completely flat. It reminds me of something a creative writing teaching once told me: If you're going to break rules, you have to understand them first.

Great idea that went way wrong

[bgrubb · 16 February 2003]

The biggest problem with viewing The Last Movie is that it actually has two parts.

The first part of the film where the citizens of a Peru village try to duplicate (for real) the violence of a western that has just been filmed in their village raises some interesting question (some put forth by the town's priest).

The problem is at a critical point for the main character (the only member of the crew to stay behind) the movie suddenly and without warning shifts gears into the second part which can best be described as 'the making/behind the scenes of the Last Movie.' Worst yet this part of the movie doesn't have any rhyme or reason in the order in which things are shown so it can be a confusing 5 minutes before the viewer figures out what has just happened. And even after the poor viewer does figure out what has just happened trying to follow this part of the film is next to impossible as it is so disjointed.

It is a pity as the premise of the film is a good one and if the film had stayed with that premise it would have been a great film. Instead you have part of a great film followed by a disjointed mess.

Recently PREMIERED in New York! In 2006!

[daniel_quiles · 5/10 · 25 August 2006]

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.

post acid Hollywood meets European avant garde

[markaerial · 10/10 · 7 June 2001]

The year is 1972. Hopper the over-achiever, has been given a loose rein and cowboy saddle to make his follow up to Easy Rider. The drug culture of the time has reached saturation point. The hallucinations have become serious. "We don't do that in the movies, we fake everything. I don't really hit the man!" Hopper as Kansas, the movie hired hand, tries to teach a Peruvian local how to punch on film. The game of movie production has gone too far. The locals use wicker-work movie equipment to simulate the film set, but what is 4 real is what is going on in front of the camera. ritual sex and murder. like Hollywood Babylon infront of the camera.

The years of editing with near-death experiences family break-ups and financial insanity, produces the most raw, hilarious, beta wave brain rush available on celluloid.

A few years earlier in Europe, Fellini made Nights of Cabiria, a film about a prostitute who 'lives the life' gets involved in feverish ceremonies and ends up living in a primative hole in the ground well beyond Rome's slums. Well this film and Hopper's have a lot in common.

The use of music in this film is incredible, Kris Kristofferson's Me and Bobby McGee(a trucking freedom song) is transposed onto a scene of Kansas trecking on his horse triumphantly to lines like "good for nuthin's good enough fo' me"

Re release this film RIGHT NOW !

How to demystify an imitator

[ulf-635-523367 · 5/10 · 17 February 2019]

How to demystify an imitator. Straight out of Lew Wasserman's youth division of Universal Dennis Hopper tried to last-out the industry by revealing and ridicule his master, Hollywood. Hopper was fun at parties and good at becoming friends with unique creators. In "the Last Movie" he remixes the design and momentum of Conrad Rooks "Chappaqua" with the intrusive art of Edward Kienholz, adds Giulio Petroni's "Death Rides a Horse" , to the lemonade, and can't Jean-Luc Godard out of his head. And in this strange brew he injects and angry fix of incidence and obsession that you probably can't find anywhere on the silver screen. Unforgettable.

CIDALC - Venice - 1971

[jaymohn · 10/10 · 30 April 2004]

Winner in Venice film festival, 1971. It says so right at the beginning of the film (if you can find a copy). Don't write it off because you hate it - there are redeeming qualities, especially for those who have a critial background in film esp. Brectian techniques/theoriy. You have to try to understand the film in the context it was produced in as well. 60's counter culture, questioning one's relationship to everything especiallt that of film and its questionable representation of reality. Again, don't write it off if you don't understand it. Films like this take lots of thought and repeated screenings.

Mildly Interesting but Technically It's Quite Awful

[Michael_Elliott · 12 August 2017]

The Last Movie (1971)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

If you knew nothing about THE LAST MOVIE and you just started watching it, it's highly unlikely by the time it was over you'd know what it was about. The film is an incoherent mess but apparently it was supposed to be about an extra (Dennis Hopper) filming a movie in Peru. After the movie wrapped the extra stays behind and falls in love with a local girl. This here leads to a land development deal as well as a group of local Indians using the movie sets to try and film a movie not knowing that movies are fake.

Say what? Hopper was on the highest of highs in Hollywood after the smashing success of EASY RIDER so he went to Peru to film this movie and it pretty much became a disaster. The drugs, the confusion, the fights and everything else that was going on pretty much ended Hopper's career as a director and the film was a financial disaster. Even to this day it's pretty hard to find unless you know where to pick up bootlegs. Is THE LAST MOVIE one of the worst films ever made? Technically speak it probably is.

For my money Roger Ebert's review of this is spot on. In it he talks about how films can be saved by the editor who can usually find enough material to make a story make sense. That's certainly not the case here. Apparently Hopper can back with hours upon hours worth of footage but as I said in my opening paragraph, if you didn't know what the film was about you certainly wouldn't be able to figure it out watching the movie. Nothing in it makes a bit of sense and scenes just happen for no reason and they end without a resolution. There are moments where the screen fades to all black and we just hear the dialogue. There are moments where "scene missing" appears and then there are scenes that appear to be out of place with the rest of the story.

A non-linear movie? That's what the supporters will tell you. If someone is able to watch this film and take something away from it, more power to them. I personally found this to be an incredibly bad movie and a film that's story is so bad with what material we're seeing that you can't help but call it technically awful. With that said, there's some entertainment value to get out of it because you just sit there wondering what was going on and how things ended up the way they did. You get several of Hopper's friends showing up including Peter Fonda, Julie Adams, Rod Cameron, Samuel Fuller, Michael Greene, Sylvia Miles, Tomas Millan, John Phillip Law, Kris Kristofferson, Dean Stockwell and Russ Tamblyn.

THE LAST MOVIE certainly deserves its notorious reputation in Hollywood's long history. It's easy to see why the film bombed when it was released and it's easy to see why no one has really tried to get it back into release. With the various behind-the-scenes battles you do have to wonder if there's perhaps more footage out there and perhaps a coherent film could be put together. With Hopper now gone it's hard to tell. THE LAST MOVIE is certainly a bizarre little number that I'm guessing only its director knows what it's meant to be.

The Last Movie and the Last Picture Show

[eagleab · 10/10 · 26 January 2005]

I loved The Last Movie. I was in film school at NYU when the film came out. It was the first movie to reveal the effect that Hollywood movies could have on individual acts of violence. Yes, Virginia, Movies and Television cause violence. Hopper shows his true genius. The Last Picture Show came out the same month. I always felt that The Last Picture Show was rushed into production to lesson the impact of The Last Movie, confusing the issue so to speak. Hollywood squashed this movie for its own survival. The Last Movie reveals the Ugly American as no other film before or after it. I would like to see it on video, but probably never will.

Great film that gets better with age

[lcrews · 9/10 · 4 August 2008]

Hopper's second directorial effort was doomed to cult status from the start. But, starting with the post-modern film school generation of the 1990s, it has started to get its just due. This is a challenging film to a viewer of any sort, but is a fascinating piece of art nonetheless.

The only thing I have to add is a reaction to some other commenters. Anyone suggesting that this film should have been edited into chronological order, or not have jump cuts, or the "Scene Missing" title cards is clearly missing the point. One of the major themes of the film is the artifice of Hollywood film-making, and having those illusions disrupted is key to the film's impact. Granted, theses are tricks lifted from the French New Wave, but they are put to great use here.

some of the images reminded me of THE WICKER MAN

[Elizabeth Nolan · 21 June 2003]

some of the images reminded me of THE WICKER MAN, even before I saw the wicker camera / horse / etc.

The beauty of the landscape, The earthiness of the people, The songs, The 'primitiveness' of the people, The sheparding of the children, The masks on the villagers faces, The treatment of the foreigner, The nudity

I know these are different movies...but if you haven't seen The WICKER MAN...