ABSTRACT
In a memorable scene from The Last Picture Show (Peter Bogdanovich, 1971), set in a small Texan town in the early 1950s, the teenager, Duane Jackson, is about to have sex for the very first time with his girlfriend, Jacy Farrow, in a shady local motel. She encourages him to undress quickly, because she is excited about losing her virginity. Lying naked on the bed, she closes her eyes while he mounts her. The camera shows his face in close-up, but his look is puzzled. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong,’ he mutters. ‘How can anything be wrong? Just go on and do it,’ she says and once again closes her eyes. To his repetitive phrase ‘I don’t know what happened,’ she has some denigrating retorts like: ‘Put your clothes on. You think I want to look at you naked?’ And Jacy ends on a dramatic note: ‘I knew you couldn’t do it. I’ll always be a virgin! What do we tell everybody? The whole class knows.’ When Duane is dressed and once again says: ‘I don’t know what happened,’ she stops him from leaving: ‘Don’t go out there! We haven’t had time to do it. I don’t want anyone to know. You’d better not tell one soul. You just pretend it was wonderful!’ As Duane leaves, the camera shows a car with two girls in it and pans to the right. A close-up of Duane with a happy smile on his face, looking in the direction of the car. A next shot is also a pan, and brings the car of his best friend, Sonny Crawford, in view, who opens the door. Then the two girls enter the motel room, and ask in an excited way what it was like. Jacy sits on the bed with a dreamy expression and talks slowly, with a faint smile: ‘I just can’t describe it. I just can’t describe it in words.’
