no excuses: it took me far too many years to finally sit down and watch The Last Picture Show (1971) entirely from beginning to end. and though this American masterpiece was the launch pad for a raft of individual talent, it's whole remains greater than its parts, a remarkable feat given the illustrious writer, crew and cast. famously set in the "tiny, dying town of Anarene, Texas", filmed entirely in parched black and white, there is one scene embedded as firmly in my head as in my heart: Ben Johnson and Timothy Bottoms share a quiet talk while fishing on a cloudy day when straying sunlight sets their images magically aglow. we learn from the director that this effect, which arrives with stopwatch timing, was completely serendipitous. Peter Bogdanovich explains (in the director's track) that he originally had other plans for the scene - the intention to capture it in one, unbroken take - but serendipity, and motion picture history, stealthfully intervened.