The Last Movie

Two years after he irrevocably changed the landscape of American cinema with Easy Rider (1969) Dennis Hopper made The Last Movie, an even more radical piece that nearly destroyed his career.

The Last Movie is a story about Kansas, a stuntman working on a B-western (played by Hopper himself) made in Mexico. After the film crew wraps up the shooting, Kansas decides to stay in the village, getting lost in the grandiose plans of getting rich quick and easy. At the same time, the locals use left-overs from the set to initiate some sort of a cargo cult, reenacting the plot of the film as a religious rite, with Kansas in the lead role. The end is – to quote Hopper himself – far-out.

According to one of the many legends that surround the turbulent making-of history of The Last Movie, Hopper physically attacked the projectionist during the presentation of the film at the Universal studio, after he heard him commenting that “this will be his last movie for sure“. Unfortunately, the projectionist was almost right: the commercial and critical flop of the film forced Hopper to return to acting, waiting for a decade for a new opportunity to direct (Out of the Blue, 1980). The film itself had a very limited distribution, mostly in the studio re-edited version titled Chinchero, while Hopper's cut remained out of circulation for decades.

Now, we we finally have the chance to see the film behind the myth: Hopper's sophomore feature is a fascinating re-coding of the western genre from the fresh, contemporary perspective, relying on the innovative editing technique which brings several different levels of reality in a dialectic embrace. At the same time, it is a fascinating exploration of cultural condescention and imperialism through film, the tensions it stirs and the backlash it creates. Restored in the beautiful 4K, Hopper's brave, original and sometimes psychedellic movie is made available for new audience, ripe for rediscovering.