The Last Movie (1971)

Directed by: Dennis Hopper | 108 minutes | drama | Actors: Dennis Hopper, Stella Garcia, Samuel Fuller, Don Gordon, Peter Fonda, Julie Adams, Sylvia Miles, Daniel Ades, Richmond L. Aguilar, John Alderman, Michael Anderson Jr., Donna Baccala, Charles Bail, Tom Baker, Toni Basil , Poupee Bocar, Rod Cameron, Roy Engel

‘The Last Movie’ is a completely flopped arthouse product by Dennis Hopper from 1971, his second film after the directorial debut ‘Easy Rider’ (1969). Technically skilled and shot on location in Peru, ‘The Last Movie’ has many time-bound elements, such as free sex, trippy scenes and left-wing engagement. At that time, Arthouse was mainly the French nouvelle vague, and Hopper followed suit with his social critique. In ‘The Last Movie’ he expresses himself as a criticism of the American dream, in contrast to the pure nature of the rainforest inhabitants in Peru.

It does look a bit far-fetched, but it is a believable contradiction. Kansas (Hopper) is an American stuntman who shoots a western in Peru. While Kansas plans to search for gold in the South American country, the locals want to shoot a film themselves. This interferes nicely with reality. The stuntman’s vague role as a duplicitous gringo is never fully understood; Hopper deliberately left it experimental, much to the chagrin of reviewers. The film was not well received in 1971; perhaps the result was disappointing after ‘Easy Rider’.

However, Hopper manages to enlarge clichés about Americans in the provinces beautifully, and visually the whole is perfectly decorated; it’s thrilling cinema. The cowboy as a macho is visually beaten. The artistic freedom found in the early 1970s had few restrictions; a screenwriter and/or producer with authority could have added a lot. After all, film is a Gesamtkunstwerk, and in that respect ‘The Last Movie’ is nothing more than an arty ego trip, albeit an extremely stylish one. A talented filmmaker is at work, that much is clear.