Easy Rider

1969 hippie manifesto

Rating: 17/20

Plot: A couple hippies strike it rich with the resell of some cocaine. They decide to get on their motorbikes and travel across the country to New Orleans. Along the way, the meet some hippies, a bunch of people who don't like hippies, Jack Nicholson, and some whores. Then, they die.

I'd taken all these wonderful notes about Easy Rider, how it's a laid-back indictment of the American dream with a graceful and poetic narrative-within-the-narrative about the history of America and the failure of capitalism. Stuff about the symbolism of Captain America driving a motorcycle fueled by cash and how free sex is more pure than sex you have to pay for and how freely chasing your ideals will only get you shot by some rednecks. Or maybe it was wasting their freedom got them shot by the rednecks. It was great stuff, but you'll have to take my word that it existed because I ended up wadding it up and stuffing it down my pipe and smoking it. I like the three leads--nonchalant and doomed Peter Fonda as Wyatt, the continuously giggling Dennis Hopper as Billy, and the lively Jack Nicholson in that goofy football helmet. I also really like the look of this movie; Laszlo Kovacs' cinematography perfectly captures the American landscape and the mysteries of our past, working almost like a visual folklore. Although I think a lot of the scenes were filmed by stoned locals Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda encountered on the journey. Easy Rider takes a turn for the weird near the end during a cemetery acid trip scene, dating the movie somewhat but nevertheless a nice trippy diversion. This is a movie just flooded with music, probably too much, and people who don't like this movie very much will argue that in addition to the thing being a relic from an era they probably don't like much, about sixty percent of the movie consists of shots of the actors riding their motorcycles while flower power anthems blare. Fair enough, but it perfectly captures the moods and wasted ideals of the time, and if you look a little deeper, you'll see it's packed with meaning. One thing I can't stand though--the blinking transition thing. That's just irritating.