Peter Bogdanovich’s “The Last Picture Show” To Screen As Part Of “Here Comes The Cinema!” – With Ed Burns Post Film Conversation

Here Comes the Cinema!, a winter Sag Harbor Cinema (SHC) series, will continue with a screening of Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show at Bay Street in Sag Harbor on Sunday, February 9 at 2 p.m. Following the screening, there will be a conversation with writer, director and actor Ed Burns.

Bogdanovich pays tribute to his idols, John Ford and Howard Hawks, in the film, which is based on a Larry McMurty autobiographical book. It’s a coming-of-age story set in Anarene, a dusty, declining Texas town in 1951.

The film stars a great cast of newcomers at the time (Jeff Bridges, Timothy Bottoms, Cybill Shepherd and Randy Quaid), together with veterans like Cloris Leachman and Ben Johnson. The film utilizes “new wave” techniques like jump cuts, zooms and jittery hand-held camera work. It received a total of eight Academy Awards nominations, including best Picture and Best Director, and two wins: Cloris Leachman and Ben Johnson, for Best Supporting Actress and Best Supporting Actor. 

“The film has an unadorned honesty that came as a jolt after the pyrotechnics of the late 1960s. While the Easy Rider generation was celebrating a heedless freedom, Bogdanovich went back to the directness and simplicity of Ford, who he admired no less than Welles,” Roger Ebert said in a review of the film.

“The Last Picture Show speaks to the heart of Ed Burns’ own cinematic universe and its poetic attraction towards small, suburban communities. I was thrilled when Ed accepted to appear as a speaker for our series, and even more that he chose this film,” said Sag Harbor Cinema’s Artistic Director Giulia D’Agnolo Vallan.

Burns is a Queens born writer, director, and actor who has starred in 13 feature films, including The Brothers McMullen, the 1955 Grand Jury Prize winner at Sundance; She’s the One (1996); Sidewalks of New York (2001); The Fitzgerald Family Christmas (2012); and, most recently, Beneath the Blue Suburban Skies (2019). His carefully crafted, sensitive portraits of small town America and suburban life are among the most insightful in contemporary US independent cinema. Burns also wrote, directed, and starred in every episode of the critically acclaimed limited series Public Morals (2015) for TNT, which was executive produced by Steven Spielberg; and also starred in Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (1998).

Tickets for admission are $15 for adults. Children under 14 are free.

Bay Street Theater is located at 1 Bay Street in Sag Harbor. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit www.sagharborcinema.org.