There is a scene in The Last Picture Show where Sam the Lion takes two teenage boys fishing at a tank on the edge of town. Early morning, flat Texas light, nobody saying much. Ben Johnson starts talking about a woman he loved forty years before — how they used to swim there, what it felt like, where it all went. He doesn’t perform the speech. He just says it, quietly, looking at the water. It’s one of the great moments in American cinema, and if you aren’t close to tears by the end of it you may want to check your pulse.
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