Dennis Hopper’s audacious 1971 movie about the ritualistic voodoo of cinema is a brilliant, exhilarating experiment
This year’s posthumous release of Orson Welles’s The Other Side of the Wind may reignite interest in another misunderstood film of that period that Welles’ work very much resembles, and which may well have inspired it: Dennis Hopper’s fascinating, flawed, experimental The Last Movie from 1971, about the ritualistic voodoo of cinema, now on rerelease - featuring cameos by Samuel Fuller and Kris Kristofferson. After the smash-hit success of Easy Rider in 1969, awestruck Universal studio bosses agreed to give Hopper and his co-writer Stewart Stern (screenwriter of Rebel Without a Cause) a million-dollar budget and an undertaking not to interfere with what they were doing. Hopper took their money, went to Peru and over a year filmed this audacious experimental picture about a movie shoot. Universal didn’t know what to do...
This year’s posthumous release of Orson Welles’s The Other Side of the Wind may reignite interest in another misunderstood film of that period that Welles’ work very much resembles, and which may well have inspired it: Dennis Hopper’s fascinating, flawed, experimental The Last Movie from 1971, about the ritualistic voodoo of cinema, now on rerelease - featuring cameos by Samuel Fuller and Kris Kristofferson. After the smash-hit success of Easy Rider in 1969, awestruck Universal studio bosses agreed to give Hopper and his co-writer Stewart Stern (screenwriter of Rebel Without a Cause) a million-dollar budget and an undertaking not to interfere with what they were doing. Hopper took their money, went to Peru and over a year filmed this audacious experimental picture about a movie shoot. Universal didn’t know what to do...
- 12/14/2018
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Before Frances Ford Coppola battled the elements for “Apocalypse Now” and Werner Herzog dragged a steamship up a hill in “Fitzcarraldo,” Dennis Hopper concocted a Hollywood project so bizarre and ambitious it nearly destroyed his career. He couldn’t have picked a more appropriate topic to put it all on the line: “The Last Movie,” Hopper’s 1971 directorial follow-up to the success of “Easy Rider,” starred the actor as a disgruntled stunt coordinator on location in the Andes Mountains who grows disillusioned with filmmaking and attempts to abandon the industry.
But the ghosts of cinema continue to haunt him, once he’s drawn back to the Peruvian village where the movie was shot to find the natives attempting to make their own imaginary movie — except they’re using cameras and microphones made of sticks, and swapping simulated violence for the real deal. This absurd twist takes on a frantic, disorienting quality,...
But the ghosts of cinema continue to haunt him, once he’s drawn back to the Peruvian village where the movie was shot to find the natives attempting to make their own imaginary movie — except they’re using cameras and microphones made of sticks, and swapping simulated violence for the real deal. This absurd twist takes on a frantic, disorienting quality,...
- 8/2/2018
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
Exclusive: Arbelos Films has constructed a trailer for The Last Movie, the now cult Dennis Hopper experimental indie that has divided film aficionados since its 1971 release. Arbelos has completed its 4K film restoration of the pic that now becomes a notable distribution kickoff for the company, which acquired Cinelicious after it dissolved more than a year ago.
The Last Movie opens August 3 at the Metrograph in New York, the city that marked the site of the original’s unsuccessful critical and commercial 1971 bow, which came on the heels of Hopper’s enormous success with Easy Rider in his directing debut. The restoration will later screen at the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles and 19 other locations nationwide.
The plan is for Los Angeles-based Arbelos to mine the Cinelicious library it now reps to release both older and newer films. Also on its upcoming slate and Béla Tarr’s 1994 film Sátántangó.
“The Last Movie...
The Last Movie opens August 3 at the Metrograph in New York, the city that marked the site of the original’s unsuccessful critical and commercial 1971 bow, which came on the heels of Hopper’s enormous success with Easy Rider in his directing debut. The restoration will later screen at the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles and 19 other locations nationwide.
The plan is for Los Angeles-based Arbelos to mine the Cinelicious library it now reps to release both older and newer films. Also on its upcoming slate and Béla Tarr’s 1994 film Sátántangó.
“The Last Movie...
- 7/17/2018
- by Patrick Hipes
- Deadline Film + TV
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