As a general rule, I watch a large array of films for the purpose of education in this direction God has led me. As another general rule, I try not to advocate or recommend particular films to a general audience. I prefer recommending them to individuals in discussion based on their spiritual walk and life goals. The film discussed in this piece, while wonderful, contains explicit material and is not one that I will recommend except to a very select group of people. You are, of course, free to watch whatever you would like, but you should seriously consider this warning.
It was a nice slow Saturday evening. I was sitting in shorts and white V-neck on my couch watching The Last Picture Show, a nostalgic film set in a fictional small Texas town, Analene, in 1951. Though shot in 1971, the film was shot in black and white. It was based on the eponymous book by Larry McMurtry and shot in his hometown of Archer City, Texas. Actually Analene is a fictionalized version of Archer City. My interpretation of the film is that while it is nostalgic, it is also the antithesis of nostalgia. You think a small Texas town in the 50s would be conservative and innocent. Yet the teen angst of the film leads to lots of sex, nudity, and a skinny dipping party. The conservative looking girl is looking for sex. The pastors son turns out to be suffering with pedophilia. All these things you expect to be innocent are not. But as I’m watching this film, I heard a noise. Unsure of what it was, I paused the film and opened my front door. Blaring down the road I could hear the tornado siren. How long had it been on? How far could a tornado be?
I nervously ran to my bedroom to change clothes. I could hardly roll the sleeves up on my button up, I was shaking and nervous. I had been to the cellar several times in my life, but even I knew on those trips it wasn’t that serious. I ran outside my house and locked my door. But as I looked down the street before pulling out of my driveway, I saw a person walking down the sidewalk somewhere further up the block. A man in a truck stopped in the middle of the road to lean out his window, presumably to ask if they wanted a ride or even if they knew what was going on. I saw the pedestrian wave them on, that all was fine. Vehicles were racing around town unlike I had ever seen. It was eerie. I went to the university’s Morrison Hall, which has a basement that is a public storm shelter. While the evening was eventful with videos of small funnels touching down at a couple of different points in the county, no major damage was done. That night everyone went back to their homes, safely.
Saturday morning the following week, I was up early. Excited about making my third trip to the small town of Archer City, Texas. Yes, that Archer City. Every time I go, I always anticipate it being my last trip. But Larry McMurtry’s huge bookstore always lures me back. And friends that double as book lovers are always up for the trip. Amber and I left Durant at 10am, departing on the almost three hour journey to the town with an approximate population of 2,000. We decided due to predicted torrential weather in the area, to fill up with gasoline before making our stop at the book store in case we needed to leave sooner than later. While Amber went inside, I sat patiently. Some young guys in an old Dodge pickup with no tailgate were filling up on the other pump. They had ratchet straps bound at the back of the bed where the tailgate would otherwise have been. In a moment, a middle-aged man walked up with an empty gas can, picked up the nozzle, and began filling it up. He started talking to the young man after he discovered they were having trouble with the pump. “There’s always something going on [with the pumps] here,” the middle aged man said. The young man said something about his dad, which led the other to ask who his dad was. The young man repeated it once and a second time after the man failed to hear the first time. “I don’t guess I know him.” At this point a Dodge Charger comes racing up to the pumps before realizing the man was standing there with his gas can. They swerved to aim for another pump. It wasn’t too fast and crazy, but it certainly had me concerned for him. Paying no attention to the car that had curved around the vehicle I was sitting in, the two girls suddenly approached the man filling up his gas can. But instead of apologizing, I heard a remark I almost thought I had misheard. “Dad!” Oh dear. The girl and her friend had a nice chit-chat with the man and as he finished filling up, and seemingly bringing the conversation to an end, he told his daughter’s friend, “don’t be a stranger.” “I won’t. I’m moving in with her,” she returned. “Oh are ya?” he asked. “No, but she will be around more this summer,” the daughter corrected the joke. The girls left, and the man took his gas can and drove off, with his welding trailer tagged to the back of his pickup. After Amber had trouble getting the gas pump to fill up correctly, she got back in the car. “This town is too small,” I said.
“Anarene, Texas, 1951. Nothing much has changed…” The tagline reads on the now-vintage movie poster. The film, now almost 45 years old, was nominated for 8 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and Best Adapted Screenplay (for Peter Bogdanovich and McMurtry). It won two. Cloris Leachman won Best Actress in a Supporting Role, and Ben Johnson for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. They both paired against another actor from the film in both of their categories, making only two of four of the nominations possible for a win. The other nominations went to Ellen Burstyn and Jeff Bridges. The film was ranked #95 on the American Film Institute’s list of the Greatest Movies of All Time. Despite the scandal that incurred in the film, which I’m sure to some extent is still true to today, I can also see a certain openness that still occurs today. The guys at the gas pumps, having a casual conversation with no knowledge of one another prior, even in the small town that it is. The man asking if the pedestrian needed a ride as a storm circulated around Durant. These are the events that give me hope that I shouldn’t give up on humanity. That we can all pause amidst busyness and chaos to help someone out, or simply choose a simpler life that allows us to get to know our neighbors. And hopefully one of those neighbors might be Sam the Lion, a voice of maturity and doing the right thing, in a town full of lusts and mischievousness. These are the things I hope for. And even though Anarene, Texas probably wouldn’t have made it to 2015, if we can take these positive remnants of the fictional town to heart, maybe we would all be better people in the long run.