The Sex, Drugs & Rock n' roll Movie (Easy Rider (DVD))

Member Name: stephen_logan

Product:	Easy Rider (DVD)
Date:	24/11/04 (934 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great Film , Birth of New Hollywood, That Soundtrack

Disadvantages: You tell me

“We blew it” one of the most confusing but ultimately one of the most accurate remarks in film history. Easy Rider is one of the most complex and unlikely film hits of all time; it takes the role of an event rather than a film, it is in fact a moment in history perfectly captured. It is a relic, a symbol of the 1960’s attitudes and a benchmark for the Hollywood new wave. After the new wave got it’s legs in 1967 with The Graduate and Bonnie and Clyde, Easy Rider was the defining picture that got the ball well and truly rolling. It had done away with all the old Hollywood conventions and was a combative production set to upset the powers that be and galvanise a nation of baby boom products. It achieved all that it wanted to but did far more, so much more in fact that it took all that were associated with the film and the entire industry by complete surprise.

The project was expected to be nothing than a low budget failure, which might hopefully bury the career aspirations of those involved. It was based on the near defunct genre of the motorbike road movie, and starred the fading 1950’s star Dennis Hopper and the hugely unpopular son of Henry Fonda, Peter. Its only saving grace was it’s minimal budget around $350,000 supposedly. The story was clever but flew in the face of everything that had gone before, it dealt with relevant issues that people just weren’t ready to deal with, drug trafficking, drug taking and prostitution. It didn’t bother writer Terry Southern who wrote a story about two motorcyclists Wyatt (Fonda) and Billy (Hopper) who trafficked drugs from Mexico to a rich mysterious man (a rare screen appearance by producer Phil Spector). They then decide to undertake a road trip across America to New Orleans for the Mardi Gras; along the way they would have large sessions of drug taking, stop in a hippy commune, pick up drunk lawyer George Hanson (played by Jack Nicholson), they get confronted by some southern rednecks in a café, they catch up with them and kill George, then they get to Mardi Gras they go to a brothel recommended by George, pick up two ladies (one of which is Toni Basil who would later find fame as the singer of Mickey) enjoy Mardi Gras, then as they look to return are both shot and killed by unfriendly duck hunters, phew. That’s only half the story; the real meat to it comes in the depth and characterisation.

The stories complexities are washed away almost by the simplicities of the on screen action and the beauty of the background American countryside. To attempt to categorise this film is to completely ignore what it is and what it was attempting to achieve. It is not just a simple biker movie; it is more a cultural map work for the American counter culture during the anti-Vietnam movement. The hippy commune is a place that is so far removed from the rest of society that is portrayed in the movie, and is a world away from the lives we lead today. It was not only a shot in the arm for America but was a rejuvenating ray of sunshine for the dying Hollywood film factory.

At the time of Easy Rider Hollywood was buried under crippling debts; something which it looked like could pull down the entire infrastructure of the system. Hollywood had become hopelessly out of touch still employing the old guard, John Ford Westerns were still circulating and high cost musical flops were financially crippling studios. It got to a stage where they simply couldn’t afford a flop, but this gave rise to independent filmmakers being given a chance. Although the old film studio owners were deeply against it, low budget films were the only way forward, until it could stabilise. The Graduate had shown just two years previously that low budget films could make a lot of money, so the risks seemed far smaller with these types of films, and the potential gains were increasingly become more and more astronomic. Easy Rider limped in with people desperately trying to sell it to unhappy vendors, nobody wanted to employ Dennis Hopper he was a violent and uncompromising washed up actor, so he was one of the major drawbacks. The budget of $350,000 meant that it was affordable and if it flopped thee would be no serious repercussions for the studio. So it got the green light.

Hopper and Fonda were an incendiary mix, jack Nicholson was thrown in as a compromise a middle ground which would hopefully stop Hopper ruining the film. They took on different roles; Hopper wanted to be an avant-garde filmmaker in the style of Jean Luc Godard, and Peter Fonda just wanted to have some sense of importance so took the vacant role of producer. Hopper took immediate control and looked as though he would kill the production before it had the time to even get started, becoming violent and obsessive, refusing to allow creative control to be passed. Fonda and Hopper grew a dislike for each other and were becoming increasingly competitive; people around them could see that the project could be going horribly wrong. But from the fire rose something good and something positive, an on screen tension that bound the film and created the effect that we see today. Unfortunately the victim was script writer Terry Southern, (written also in my Dr Strangelove review) he wrote the original manuscript, but Hopper had improvised some scenes and altered some which meant that southern was written out all together. Fonda took equal writing credits with Hopper and originally left Southern with none, although now he has been acknowledged he was refuse when he needed it most. This feud destroyed Southern but did help create a cinematic landmark that would activate the minds of its generation and those to follow.

Hopper originally took sole editing duties, unfortunately he had very little idea of how to formulate a rounded production, he edited for weeks and what he produced was an unrecognisable mess. Almost 3 hours long the story was dull and seemingly very pointless, once again the film was in jeopardy. Bert Schneider the executive producer forcibly emplaced a new editor and removed Hopper before he went completely mad.

The film was nominated for it’s originality at every top award ceremony, and would eventually make a staggering $60 million worldwide. This huge profit for such a small blew the Hollywood doors wide open for up and coming personal film makers like Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Bogdanovich as well as the unfortunate pairing of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas (a gripe a will come back to another day). The film had caused a sensation and is still doing so to this day, it reinvigorated the careers of Dennis Hopper (who would later sink further into a drug induced madness but starred in films like Apocalypse Now and Blue Velvet) and Peter Fonda, whilst launching the young Jack Nicholson into the Hollywood limelight.

It was a new dawn for cinema and a new start for Hollywood, it defined an entire movement and destroyed 40 years of Hollywood tradition. Everything was new, even the soundtrack with inputs by The Byrds, Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix, they gave it the sound that projected what the images were implying. These were heady days where you could get stoned on camera and show the effects so blatantly, the soundtrack was not only the background to a film it was a representation of everything and everybody that Easy Rider appealed to. No film has impacted an entire system quite as much as Easy Rider. Whilst it borrowed heavily from the French New wave it showed that the American new wave could too become a force to be reckoned with and so it proved. The film is an ode to the American landscape but also serves as a criticism of the old order and their stranglehold over future developments. It is still relevant because the story is strong enough to hold the amazing cinematography (László Kovács work), and the myths that enshroud it are as interesting as the film itself. Buy the DVD and enjoy this film over and over again.

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