LAST MOVIES (STANLEY SCHTINTER, 2026)
COME ON A MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR THROUGH FILM AND DEATH, A MEMENTO MORI MADE OF CELLULOID!
The old religions are dead. Ever since we tamed light and shadow, heaven has been torn asunder and emptied, and all the old gods are out to the pictures. A new religion has taken its place. The cult of movies reigns supreme. Stanley Schinter penned our new bible, Last Movies, in 2023. And now his cult classic book is a major motion picture.
THE END ? - An End card from LAST MOVIES (2026)
This is a documentary unlike any other we saw this year. Last Movies is a series of funeral card-like vignettes. It connects the last watched movies of the stars of the silver screen, or those the silver screen loved, before they went to the great beyond. They themselves lived and loved movies and sometimes died movies. From Kafka to Cobain, what unseen force weaves these people together? Cinema! And death. It creates a new mythology, and you just have to go along with the ride.
This is a documentary unlike any other we saw this year. Last Movies is a series of funeral card-like vignettes. It connects the last watched movies of the stars of the silver screen, or those the silver screen loved, before they went to the great beyond. They themselves lived and loved movies and sometimes died movies. From Kafka to Cobain, what unseen force weaves these people together? Cinema! And death. It creates a new mythology, and you just have to go along with the ride.
I have been a fan of Stanley’s work for a while. He ran The Liberated Film Club in London, where even the person introducing the film didn’t know what it was. In 2022, he curated and edited The Lock-In, an ever-growing project that consists entirely of pub footage from EastEnders. So when I heard that his book Last Movies was being transposed into a flick, I found myself telling people how excited I was and trying to explain the book and what the film may be like.
To the folk around me, it sounded insane. Out of my mouth, it sounded like it would be a film that reached for something vague and mashed ideas and stories together. It’s not. It’s seamless- not to mention stylish. The weaving together of these lives and dimises, sometimes seemingly unconnected, unlocks a truly spiritual path from cinema's birth to its death. If you give yourself to the flow of the film, and take it with an open and true heart, it sings!
COVER OF LAST MOVIES AVAILABLE HERE: https://tenementpress.bigcartel.com/product/stanley-schtinter-last-movies
Despite the fact is is merely made up of footage from films and a meandering stream of consciousness like voice-over, the film grabs your attention and holds you. You may feel you lose hold of one thread the film weaves, but before you can fret, there’s another one in front of you. A new film, a new death, a new theory.
The film therefore relies on some jolly good voice-over acting, and for this, Schinter employed the great Jeremy Irons. The text itself is dense but playful; perhaps with a lesser speaker it could lull at points, but Irons isn’t reading; he is performing. He really puts a spark into this that only catches quicker with the great images. He is our sherpa through a kaleidoscope of cinema. Everything is connected. The film is hard to put your finger on in that very esoteric way. This is a cop out, but it’s just one of those flicks you have to see for yourself.
It sometimes has the feel of Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon, bobbing and weaving through cinematic history with an exaggerated touch. It’s hard to describe the fibres of this film; it is spiritual in that way. What will it make you feel? Perhaps you’ll see it as unconnected nonsense. Or perhaps it will speak to you as it spoke to us, in an ancient Enochian language only the angels can speak. I can’t wait to see this film again.
