Timothy Bottoms makes youthful uncertainty worth watching without making it seem wise. His Sonny Crawford in The Last Picture Show earns our affection by remaining awkward and fallible, even when we would like him to know better.
Fi1m perspective
Timothy Bottoms lets Sonny Crawford look uncertain without treating it as a problem to be corrected. In Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show (1971), the boy holds our attention without being made unusually wise for his age. We were moved by how readily Sonny can be foolish and vulnerable at once; Bottoms lets us care about him without asking us to excuse him. The film’s frankness about sex helps: wanting somebody’s attention can be embarrassing, and Bottoms does not spare Sonny that embarrassment.
That performance came in the same year as his film debut, playing Joe Bonham in Johnny Got His Gun (1971). The Paper Chase (1973) followed, with Bottoms as law student James T. Hart opposite John Houseman. Sensitive, troubled young men were central to his early work, but his prominence diminished after the mid-1970s as he moved towards television and lower-profile films.
Jeff Bridges is crucial to why that performance works. As Duane Jackson, he supplies the outward confidence that Sonny lacks, keeping the boys distinct while allowing both to be foolish and vulnerable. Bottoms leaves Bogdanovich room to observe him, but he needs that room: this is quiet acting whose interest depends on a director taking small uncertainties seriously. Bogdanovich’s frank treatment of sexual appetite keeps Sonny from becoming merely wistful, and Bottoms accepts the less flattering aspects of the boy.
Bottoms returned to Sonny in Bogdanovich’s Texasville (1990), though attention to the sequel fell more heavily on other cast members. Later supporting work included Mr. McFarland in Gus Van Sant’s Elephant (2003), followed by further independent films and series into the 2020s. There is no need to approach those parts as an investigation into what went wrong. Start with The Last Picture Show, and resist the temptation to watch only the more confident young man beside him.
Biography
Timothy James Bottoms is an American actor and film producer. He made his film debut in 1971 as Joe Bonham in Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun and appeared the same year as Sonny Crawford in Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show, alongside his brother Sam Bottoms. He reprised the role in the 1990 sequel Texasville.
In 1973 he starred as James Hart in The Paper Chase. Bottoms has also appeared in Rollercoaster (1977), Invaders from Mars (1986) and Elephant (2003). He portrayed President George W. Bush in the sitcom That's My Bush!, the film The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course and the television film DC 9/11: Time of Crisis.
He co-produced the 1991 documentary Picture This – The Times of Peter Bogdanovich in Archer City, Texas, about the making of The Last Picture Show and Texasville. Bottoms was born in Santa Barbara, California, on 30 August 1951 and began performing on stage locally before touring Europe in 1967 with the Santa Barbara Madrigal Society.
