Note: The film will begin automatically, but might take a moment to start.
"The Last Class" is a silent film.
What's so special
about "The Last Class?"
Aside from the fact that it was my first foray into filmmaking:
It was filmed with a hand-wound 16mm camera, which limited
the longest shot to 30 seconds.
It features "parallel editing," which, if you've
never seen it before, looks really cool. (You'll know it when you see it.)
All of the tracking shots were made using a tripod with
wheels!
None of the stars were professional actors, yet the acting
is excellent.
It was filmed in three sessions over the course of 6 weeks,
yet all of the principal actors look exactly the same and are even wearing the same
clothes! Continuity at its finest!
The entire film was storyboarded -- and nearly every shot
was a single take -- practically unheard of in the world of filmmaking.
I edited the film in my dorm room, staying up until 4 and 5
A.M. for weeks, cutting and gluing it together. In agony, yes, there is ecstasy.
At the world premiere, which was held on campus in the
Collins LLC cafeteria, nearly everyone booed at the ending!
When I asked the director of the 1997 Houston International
Film Festival if I could enter it into the competition -- special permission was required
because the film was not produced in 1996 -- the director laughed at me! But then he
granted me permission to enter it. And then it didn't win.
If you search the Web for "Paul Polus," you'll get
this page!
"The Last Class"
is a silent, 16mm B/W film about 5 minutes long, and if your browser doesn't support the
embedded media player to your left, you'll have to download the
file. There are three segments to the film:
Longing:
The star of the film, Ted Rubenstein, is a shy, quiet student who has his eye on a fellow
student, played by Amy Rusk. Humorously, however, the professor (Peter Holquist)
repeatedly catches Ted expressing more interest in Amy than his class work.
Fantasy:
In this controversial scene considered by some to be even too risqué for the '80s, Ted
imagines himself in a class in which all of the female students -- as well as the female
professor -- are hopelessly attracted to him. Ted, of course, turns his focus towards Amy
once she enters the room.
Cruel Reality: Alas, boy meets girl, and... and... oh, you don't really want me to spoil
the ending, do you?
In a scene from George Thomas, Jr.'s 1985 haunting classic, "The Last Class," the boys don't like what they
see. HINT: There are no girls around! From Left: Paul Polus, Joe Lilley, Peter Holquist,
Joe Kiefer, Bill Webb and Tom Baltz. Random fact: one of the students pictured above has
another role in the film -- as the class professor!
