William L
A community theatre-level production that happened to be shot on location instead of the rec center downtown. Just because a film has a lot of expletives doesn't make it any more honest about its subject matter - the struggles of working class Americans - than any of the decades of thematically similar works produced over the previous quarter century by people following in the tracks of Arthur Miller or Tennessee Williams. The acting is amateurish, and not in a way that makes the film feel any more authentic; if anything, it takes you out of the moment. If you're of the belief that long takes and simple, static camera shots make a story more realistic, intimate, engaging, and insightful, then you can have plenty of those in a sub-90 minute runtime with Last Chants for a Slow Dance. Think of it as a short, violent version of Jeanne Dielman.
Really strange addition to the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. (1.5/5)
Rated 1.5/5 Stars •
Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars
07/27/21
Full Review
s r
1001 movies to see before you die. I disagreed with this one. Although it was unique, it was painful and harshly real. Sad. It was on Youtube and I don't plan on seeing it again.
Rated 1.5/5 Stars •
Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
Full Review
Audience Member
The one made on an extremely low budget where the guy keeps running away from his family.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/22/23
Full Review
Audience Member
OK for amateurs, but still blindingly amateurish.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
02/16/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Of all of Jost's films I have seen, Last Chants for a Slow Dance seems to be most character-centric film about Tom, a loner type character who seems to lack any real desire for emotional connection. This is definitely the most despicable character in a Jost film I can think of, and Tom Blair does a great job at capturing this men's desperation and overall terrible demeanor. The scene where Tom cheats on his wife is without question the best scene in the film. The use of the TV in the background as a sort of commentary on love and lust- coupled with the aftermath where Tom argues with his wife about her lack of support while the other woman sits in the adjacent room waiting. While I do think Jost's style fit some of his other films much more, the lingering camera does work well at soaking in this isolation and loneliness which exists in many of the character, even Tom, though his aggressive nature really left me feeling little to no sympathy for him. Being that this is like Jost's road movie, there are also a few great scenes where Tom is on the road, the camera just films the passing country-side or roadway, capturing how Tom's life is essentially nothing outside of the open road, where he seems to find some form of solace. Probably my least favorite of Jost's films I have seen, but still definitely interesting and worth a watch.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/17/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Last Chants for a Slow Dance (Jon Jost, 1977)
The cinematic language found in Jon Jost's obscure, yet legendary, first film, Last Chants for a Slow Dance, is obvious in retrospect; it's a combination of the avant-garde cinema verite approach of John Cassavettes' early films (especially Faces) and the love affair with the long, slow shot that we have come to associate with the Eastern Europeans (Tarkovsky and Bela Tarr in particular). It should be no surprise, then, that Last Chants for a Slow Dance landed on the thousand-best lists of both Jonathan Rosenbaum and Steven Jay Schneider, both of whom have Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev, Stalker, and Solaris (Schneider also includes Mirror) andâ"well, let's just say Rosenbaum's list contains seven Cassavettes flicks and Schneider's four (including, of course, both Faces and Shadows) on their thousand-best lists as well. Jost being a relatively perfect distillation of the two, it was a given, really.
Last Chants for a Slow Dance is a character study of Tom (Tom Blair, who would team up with Jost again for two films in the nineties), an unlikable drifter who wanders through Montana half-heartedly searching for a job and angering just about everyone he comes into contact with, including his long-suffering wife. Tom is not a guy you want to spend ninety minutes with, and there are a lot of things about this movie (both intentional and not, since thirty years out it's tough to find a print of this that isn't horribly degraded) that reinforce that impression, and yet it remains an absorbing character study. Jost accomplishes this through the way he reveals Tom's character to us; every time you think you've got him figured out, we get just a little more. Not to say this is a film rife with plot twists or anything along those lines; in fact, the entire movie takes place over five extended scenes, each of which gives us a slightly different aspect of Tom. In general, each scene is structured around a single shot (think of the infamous ten minute single-angle shot in Haneke's Funny Games or any of those fifteen-minute monstrosities that make up Bela Tarr's Satantango), and around Tom's interaction with one character. Each alone gives us a picture; together, they give us something else entirely.
Perhaps the most impressive thing about this movie is that, according to the final title card, Jost made it for about $2,000. Even adjusting for inflation, that's a mighty small sum of money to make a movie. And it goes to show that if you know what you're doingâ"and that's obviously relative, given that this was Jost's first featureâ"you don't need money to tell a compelling story on film. Highly recommended. ****
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/11/23
Full Review
Read all reviews
>
