"...and of course you're going to shoot it in black and white."
- Orson Welles to director Peter Bogdanovich
Who am I to dispute the great Orson Welles? So I fiddled with my camera's settings to shoot black and white and headed out to Archer City, site for filming of the famed "The Last Picture Show". Sure you've all seen "Fast Times At Ridgemont High" but life gets compressed pretty quickly in small west Texas towns too and I saw plenty of one year marriages in my hometown high school. What else you gonna do to make it look good after you knock her up?
Larry McMurtry's novel and screenplay sought to give vent to an unvarnished look at bored, restless teenagers and dying adults circa 1950 in the fictional town of Anarene, Texas. McMurtry spares nothing and no one as he points his spotlight in all directions, unmasking the mythology of their lives - all the while creating a mythology of rural lives long given up hope on life. It's a situation too bleak for colors - those were blown away long ago by the almighty Texas dust.
I arrived on a cloudy and sometimes rainy day. Just perfect.
Roads leading out of town take on a mythology of their own, like railroad tracks leading out to the wider world, the place where anything can happen. As a kid, you remember every spot, every crack - that's your way out, boy.
Royal Theater, the legendary last picture show.
Inside the ticket booth are stills from the movie
It was very much a cowboys' town. I felt very out of place and self-conscious taking pictures. I must have looked like a gawking tourist at a zoo.
Here is where all the good ol' boys went to meet and eat.
I found the football field. Perhaps the most sacred place in any rural town. Football is how God speaks to a community. Blessed are the winners for glory is thine.
I love this shot of the secondary stands. I see so many dreams won and lost in it, memories to linger for life. In the movie, the kids are ribbed mercilessly for losing on the field.
The lone flashing red light. You wouldn't know it from this pic, but it was a damn busy intersection. May not be a lot of people living in Archer City but it seems everyone passes through it.
A lonely city street stretching into infinity. I couldn't imagine being anchored there for life. But once you build a family, all the world revolves around that.
And here we see the Royal theater from the side, exposing its wrecked wall and (hopefully) repairs being made. It's indicative of what happens when you scratch the surface of a rural Texas town.
I also took some other pics on my way up to the panhandle. You can't miss seeing one of these. Not many still operate but this one did.
A brave tree toughing it out against the Texas wind and dry, barren landscape.
Here a farmer's field melts into the sky. It's easy to dream on a farm. Could you imagine the "Wizard of Oz" having a cloistered apartment as its starting point?
I also found this abandoned windmill, a photographer's dream. I could have made a postcard out of this, it speaks through the lens so well.
The school colors of my hometown were green and gold. I always liked that combination and it remains that way till this day. From this shot of a farmer’s field, you can see where those colors were derived.
Click here to look at the complete set.
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"He was sweeping you sons-of-bitches!"
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