Easy Rider

Over time, this rough diamond of a film has become a real gem in my collection. When I first saw it at the theater, I remember liking the anti-establishment attitude and the rock music soundtrack. Later, on T.V., I remember thinking what a great actor Jack Nicholson was...and how terribly low-budget the rest of the film appeared.

And now, over 30 years later....it's one of my favorite movies of all time. Peter Fonda tries to be Everyman....but he's really the most insecure individual of the group. His cathartic trip at the cemetary in New Orleans is embarrassingly honest to watch. His search is not for individual freedom...his search is for a family. And yet, he is always the outsider, the observer.

Dennis Hopper is the sidekick, the fool. And like a fool, he cannot hide his thoughts behind a socially acceptable demeanor. He constantly says exactly what he thinks. He has little patience for flower children, pretentious intellectuals, coy women, law officers, drunks in jail, or rednecks passing him on the road. Like a fool, he is doomed. Jack Nicholson is the core of the film. He does not appear until halfway through the bikers' odyssey, but the trip will not make sense until his face rises up from the jailhouse cot to peer bleary-eyed at his surroundings. He is the innocent man of this group....he is the AMERICAN. This movie is just another road picture, the way ON THE ROAD by Kerouac was just another travel book. This little counterculture movie is an American Classic.

'Easy Rider' is much more than a 60s relic - it's still a great movie even today. I find it fascinating that Hopper and Fonda took Roger Corman material and gave it an arthouse approach influenced by Godard and the French New Wave. Combined with breathtaking visuals, a well chosen rock soundtrack and some classic, stoned, improvised dialogue this is still an impressive movie all these years later. Fonda had recently made 'The Wild Angels', Hopper the less remembered 'The Glory Stompers', and Jack Nicholson 'Hells Angels On Wheels', but 'Easy Rider' reinvented the biker movie, and things were never quite the same in Hollywood for the rest of the Seventies. The supporting cast is interesting and includes a great role for the fantastically underrated Luke Askew as the "Stranger on Highway", and cameos from the stars buddies Luana Anders ('Dementia 13') and Sabrina Scharf (Nicholson's love interest in 'Hells Angels On Wheels'), as well Karen Black and Toni Basil's New Orleans hookers, Phil Spector's coke snorting bit part, and a fleeting glimpse of a young Grizzly Adams. You either love this movie or you don't, and I'm most definitely in the former camp. A 1960s generation-defining counter-culture classic!

My friends and I went to see "Easy Rider" when we were in college. We sat around and commiserated about the fact that there was that Sword of Damocles, the Vietnam War, hanging over each of our heads. The anti-hero became the hero. Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper travelling across the country, scoring drugs, taking risks, trying to find America (the cliché of the time). They have some dalliances and some confrontations. They hook up with some pathetic women. Hopper is a hothead. Fonda full of wanderlust. Jack Nicholson as George come along for the ride because he has never seen anything like this before. The problem was a sickness that permeated everything at the time. As I've grown older, it has been easier to see weaknesses of these men. We were so angry about the conclusion and our parents say these guys got just what they deserved. That's what America was at that time. This movie made us think of the fragility of our lives in the hands of politicians and base individuals. See this again after all these years.

Not many films have documented an era of American culture the way it must have really been. THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES captured the reality of the post-war 1940's. TAXI DRIVER is a masterpiece of social distortion and paranoia exemplary of the 1970's. No film other than EASY RIDER captures the late 1960's as seen by the American counter-culture. Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper's story of two men who go in search of America and 'freedom' is a bona fide sign of the times. I may not have been around at the time, but it is great to see a film portraying the long-haired, hippie attitude towards an America in turmoil in the form of a biker flick, circa 1969.

EASY RIDER is an exploration of vast and desolate parts of the country. Of course, the stop at Mardi Gras is a necessity, but what Fonda and director Hopper are trying to tell us is that there was no 'freedom' as they saw it. The sprawling journey shows filmgoers the multiple frictions and shattered idealism of a generation in the midst of cultural change. Sex, drugs, and music were exploding socially and 1960's ideology may have come to an end in 1969, literally and figuratively speaking - much like it shockingly does in this film.

Peter Fonda plays cool "Captain America", otherwise known as Wyatt, while Hopper is a paranoid prophet of the hippies as "Billy the Kid". The stunning DVD version of the film notes the importance of Laszlo Kovacs, the director of photography. Much of the film consists of Kovacs' simple shooting of the riders as they travel spiraling highways and bigoted backroads. It is some beautiful footage and essential to the trip. A major deal is made, much grass is smoked, and the film takes off from there. Their ultimate goal is never clearly defined, but Fonda's final comment to Hopper may sum it up for viewers. Did they find what America was supposed to be about? I guess not according to Fonda.

There is a surreal experience at a commune the Kid and Wyatt stop at. These scenes are out of a Fellini film. One significant shot paints the commune with a 360 degree pan across the faces of the live-in hippies. The expressions on the faces all seem different, some grinning, others just zoned out. Kovac's amazing camera work (especially on the road with the bikes) along with a virtual who's who in rock music of the late 60's makes for a sometimes visceral filmgoing experience. The immortal 'Born to be Wild' blares over the opening title sequence and everyone from Hendrix to The Byrds are heard throughout.

EASY RIDER also contains one of Jack Nicholson's 2 or 3 most memorable performances, even to this day. As drunken lawyer "George Hanson", he creates an amazingly funny and perfect counterpoint to Hopper and Fonda. He realizes what the general public can think of the "long-hairs" and puts himself in danger just by traveling with them. A bizarre notion of alien presence in the U.S. government is part of a hilarious conversation Nicholson and Hopper have over Whiskey and smoke. His scenes on Fonda's chopper with the golden football helmet are absolute, cinematic classics.

Credit must be given to Fonda, Hopper, Nicholson, Kovacs, and Terry Southern for giving a new face to movie-making. They captured the era in a raw, jump cutting fashion. Maybe the hippies were not entirely right by trying to live off the land, or smoking dope all the time, but they may have been onto something.

RATING: ***1/2

Dennis Hopper's Easy Rider is often cited as being an all time classic, and while I don't think this is a great film in terms of technical brilliance, it sums up the era it was made and the tongue in cheek, cynical take on the 'American dream' is both potent and well done. This film is very much a product of the sixties and, like many things from the decade, will always be fondly remembered. Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda, men of substance and substance abuse, wrote the film together and Hopper directed it. These two were obviously in the thick of what was cool in the sixties, and that gives the film an element of authenticity as we feel like what we're seeing isn't too far away from the things really going on at that time. The plot is simple and more just a base for the film to deliver it's real sting than anything else. It follows two motorbike riders on their way from Los Angeles to the Mardi Gras in New Orleans. We follow their exploits as they travel the country meeting various people including, most notably, George Hanson; an offbeat lawyer, played by the great Jack Nicholson.

The American Dream has always been about freedom. But like George Hanson says; it's one thing to talk about being free, but something else entirely to actually be it. That's the theme of the entire movie, and the way that it plays out, and the ending especially, aptly portray the difference between saying something and actually doing it. The acting performances are a big part of the movie, and the two leads; Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper stick out the most. The two actors brilliantly get into their characters, and after a while you forget that you're watching actors and start to think that these people really are these characters. Jack Nicholson turns up halfway through and steals the show. It's not hard to see why this actor went on to become one of the best of all time. Even here, he shows his charisma and ability to steal the show and that is what he would go on to become famous for doing later in his career. Last but not least, another great thing about Easy Rider is the music. Music was, of course, a big thing in the sixties; and it's a big thing about this movie. Classic rock accompanies the pictures of the two men rider their bikes, and it's very cool indeed. On the whole, this film is an out and out classic.