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The Wellesian dilemma, to age gracefully, and there's Timothy Bottoms' resemblance to Tim Holt in The Magnificent Ambersons. The Fifties vu par the Seventies, the Texas backwater shot like a vintage backlot. "Remember, beautiful, everything gets old if you do it often enough." High-school football is a lost cause, nothing on the horizon for the teen protagonist and his dim pal (Jeff Bridges), nothing to do but sweep the dust and think about sex. (They fight over Cybill Shepherd's golden coquette, the other vitelloni make do with heifers.) The adult world fares no better, the vixen's mother (Ellen Burstyn) dispenses hard-won cynicism while the coach's wife (Cloris Leachman) seizes the loafing lad out of pure, aching loneliness. Pool hall, greasy spoon and fleapit theater, all owned by the gruff elder (Ben Johnson) whose crumbling grandeur mirrors that of the mythical West, or at least classical Hollywood's vision of it. "I reckon I'm as sentimental as the next fellow when it comes to old times." New Hollywood's courtly antiquarian, Peter Bogdanovich and the remembrance of cinemas past. Keats in the classroom and grab-ass in the gym, Elizabeth Taylor shimmering on the screen and stringy coeds sighing in the audience. Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance holds formal sway but the timbre is closer to Bertolucci's Prima della rivoluzione, the Po River here is a small fishing tank with only turtles left. The elegy has a sensitive aural side—blasting radio and howling wind, the clamorous bedsprings of a clandestine rendezvous, the majestic Red River yeehaws that can't quite compete with the encroaching tinniness of television. The relationship between generations finally comes down to damaged lovers at a kitchen table and a resigned gesture across the widescreen. "See you in a year or two if I don't get shot." Bogdanovich in Texasville trades the tragedy of adolescence for the comedy of middle-age. Cinematography by Robert Surtees. With Eileen Brennan, Sam Bottoms, Clu Gulager, Randy Quaid, Sharon Ullrick, Joe Heathcock, and Bill Thurman. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |