Dennis Hopper’s final film — released at last!
“EVERY TIME I’m at Sundance, I realize what a great film festival it is, everything about it. But then I get this odd idea; what would the worst film festival in the world be like — with small films and big egos and financial concerns?”
“The worst festival? I’ve probably been there, but just can’t remember! Listen, that’s a funny idea kid. Write it, and I’ll do it.”
“Really? I’m going to hold you to that.”
This was part of the conversation between writer/director/producer Linda Yellen and iconic movie actor Dennis Hopper seven years ago, at Sundance. Both were as good as their word. Linda quickly came up with “The Last Film Festival,” a script about, well — the worst festival on earth, or at least in North America. And Dennis (along with Jackie Bissett, JoBeth Williams, Chris Kattan, Leelee Sobieski, Joseph Cross and Agim Kaba) agreed to star.
Unfortunately, Dennis died in 2010, leaving a number of his vital scenes undone. Since then, Linda, known for TV’s esteemed “Playing for Time” and indie features such as “End of Summer,” “Chantilly Lace,” “The Simian Line,” and “Parallel Lives,” has worked tirelessly to complete the film, raising money and working out how to seamlessly present her movie, even without Dennis’ missing scenes.
It has been a labor of love, a passion project. And at no point did Linda ever resign herself to, “Oh, this just isn’t going to happen!” What she’d often say was, “This is Dennis Hopper’s final screen work. I know it means something to the industry and it sure as h—l means something to me!”
Now, with a distributor, Monterey Media, and a September 30 release date pinned down, Linda recently did something she’d attempted in the past. She visited Hopper’s extended family in Taos, New Mexico, and paid respects at the actor’s grave. Personal/professional circumstances and her own emotions had kept Linda away.
She told me recently: “Maybe I couldn’t go, because I felt guilty somehow, that the movie hadn’t been completed. I didn’t want to stand there and say, ‘Sorry, kid, that great idea just didn’t work out.’ I went, and I could say, ‘It’s done. Thank you. I love you.’”
Yellen spent time with Dennis’ Native-American godson, handsome musician (Red Thunder Band) Ronny Romero and others in Hopper’s eclectic world of extended family and friends in Taos.
Linda laughed and said, “I won’t deny that it became kind of a pilgrimage. I ate at his favorite restaurants, I saw the Dennis Hopper Highway. I learned that every year on his birthday, hundreds of bikers make the trek from Santa Fe to Taos, just like in ‘Easy Rider.’”
“I went to the Mable Lodge Luhan House, that saw so much partying, and then the gorgeous El Cortez Theater, which he transformed into his home. But you could still tell it had been a theater, which was wonderful and infinitely fitting for a man who was so much a part of cinema iconography.”
As to Hopper’s gravesite, Linda says: “It was moving, and not initially what I was expecting, but then I realized it was so perfectly Dennis. I took pictures, but those I’d rather not share.”
I am so happy for Linda, who looks rather fragile and delicate, but who is certainly sensitive and has stamina to spare. Against the odds, she brought “The Last Film Festival” to fruition. She is a remarkable woman and filmmaker. Heloise
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