Love and betraya in a small Texas town, as the decaying past gives way to an uncertain future for a set of high school students.
Writer-director Peter Bogdanovich studied acting under Stella Adler, but found his first calling in programming classic films at MoMA and writing criticism for Esquire magazine. Eventually he migrated to Hollywood and directed features for exploitation king Roger Corman, as well as interviewing legendary filmmakers like Orson Welles, John Ford, and Howard Hawks.
Urged by a friend to adapt the semi-autobiographical novel by Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove), Bogdanovich worked on the screenplay with the author as well as his own wife Polly Platt. He also received advice from Welles, now a close friend and houseguest, and decided to shoot the film in black and white. In addition, the production would be on location in McMurtry's hometown of Archer Falls.
The cast features debut/early screen appearances by Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepherd, Randy Quaid, and Timothy Bottoms, as well as Actor's Studio alumni Cloris Leachman (Young Frankenstein) and Ellen Burstyn (The Exorcist), and Ben Johnson, a veteran of many John Ford westerns.
Behind the camera, Bodganovich was assisted by Platt on production design and 3-time Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Surtees (The Graduate, The Sting). The independent studio financing the production was BBS, already responsible for groundbreaking "New Hollywood" works Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces.
Compared to other young directors of the time, Bogdanovich's style is less experimental and more restrained, more in line with the old masters Ford and Hawks. One bold move is the lack of an orchestral music score, instead using period country songs, almost all of which play diegetically in the scenes.
With a budget of less than $2 million, the film was a success at the box office and received very positive reviews from critics. It was nominated for 8 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Director, and won Oscars for Johnson and Leachman in the Supporting acting categories.
Running time is approx. 2 hours.
No comments:
Post a Comment