However, the film also offers plenty to shock due to the narrative weaving this way and that. Given the amount of drugs consumed, it's remarkable that a film appeared at all, let alone one as distinct and influential as this. The other problem is the film's pacing which is also wayward and somewhat plodding, perhaps not unsurprisingly. Being a child of the Eighties, I was ignorant about hippie communes in California while the apparent threat in biker gangs has been long consigned to history and bad films like Cobra. Both films rely on symbolism and metaphor and unless you fully understand the film's context, it's easy to find yourself wondering what exactly it is you're watching.
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It reminded me a lot of Vanishing Point, another road movie that fudges a story through a drug-addled haze. The film (perhaps deliberately) feels like a fever dream and often doesn't make a whole lot of sense to Millennial squares like me. It's difficult to criticise a film as beloved and important as Easy Rider but it's perhaps lost some of its cultural significance these days. The demolished bike was rebuilt and has an estimated value of $1-1.2 million. One was destroyed for the film's climax while the other three were stolen and dismantled, presumably before the thieves knew of their historical significance.
Fonda wore the Captain America jacket around LA for a week to give it a more lived-in look.The movie also marks the only film appearance of music tycoon and convicted murderer Phil Spector who Hopper admits had two things in his favour: his Rolls Royce and his personal bodyguard who both appeared in the film for free. For many of the film's cast, this would be their only film appearance. Many of the extras in the film were genuine hippies or townspeople recruited on the spot by Hopper.The film finds little sympathy for any of its characters and even punishes its two lovable leads with a brutal and traumatising bad trip in a ramshackle graveyard.įonda's central performance not only holds the film together but also acts as a mystical guide to those of us unaccustomed to the drugs shown. However, the film is actually quite angry which might have something to do with the tyrannical behaviour of debutante director Hopper. It's an easy film to watch, at least for the most part, due to its laid-back charm. The film has a stark beauty to it - I especially liked the shot of the two riding their hogs along a desert highway and the sky is awash with colour as the sun is going down, the horizon populated by jet-black mountains and rocky outcrops. The film has a noticeably different vibe than more mainstream cinema at the time with jump-cuts, flashbacks and flash-forwards, improvised dialogue and a soundtrack composed of popular songs at the time instead of an original score - all things which are now commonplace in movies. Such is the film's influence and importance that it was selected for preservation at the National Film Registry at the US Library Of Congress in 1998.įor a film improvised by a cast mostly stoned for real, Easy Rider surprises as much as it bemuses at times. It has since become both a landmark picture depicting the Sixties counterculture and also helped usher in a new era in the early Seventies that introduced more auteur directors such as Brian De Palma, Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese and William Friedkin. With global takings in excess of $60 million, the film not only spoke to the contemporary youth of the time but also the numerous Hollywood studios who realised that low-budget independent cinema could yield significant returns. The film was largely improvised between the cast with a script developed in conjunction with Terry Southern. Produced by co-star Peter Fonda, the film follows two bikers who travel throughout the southern United States with the proceeds from a recent drug deal. Easy Rider is an independently produced road movie released in 1969 and was directed by star Dennis Hopper.
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