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| An iconic poster for Dennis Hopper's Easy Rider in a ghastly yellow |
Two friends complete a drug deal and start a road trip on motorcycles, which leads them to a hippie collective, a New Orleans jail, a bad trip in a cemetery and more.
Easy Rider, written by Terry Southern (Barbarella (1968)), Peter Fonda (Enemy (1990)) and co-writer-director Dennis Hopper (Chasers (1994)), is one of the most iconic and sensation-stirring American films of the 20th century and the single most responsible film for marshaling in the New Hollywood period of young filmmakers with license to experiment that enriched the cinematic output of the country in the 1970s. - But does that naturally entail that it is a masterpiece or even a great film? I think not.
When Jack Nicholson (The Last Tycoon (1976)) enters Easy Rider, it attains a power and a natural center that it lacks before his arrival. SPOILER But then he dies, and later the two leads (Fonda and Hopper) go the same way.
The good things in Easy Rider, principally, are the scenes of driving and nature, which contains fantastic beauty, along with a few other scenes such as the cemetery trip scene. The music in the film and portrait of its time is also a huge part of its lingering attraction. However, I don't feel any romantic connection to the late-60s era or the hippies the film idolize, and perhaps as a consequence, ultimately, Easy Rider continues to strike me as a somewhat boring and overrated film with a very thin plot.
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Watch the intro from the film here
Cost: Listed as 360k $ - but additional music license cost of 1 mil. $ rises the overall cost to 1.36 mil. $
Box office: 60 mil. $
= Mega-hit
[Easy Rider premiered 12 May (Cannes) and runs 95 minutes. Fonda and Hopper developed the film as a deeper reflection upon their times and the youth revolt and personal experiences on films such as The Wild Angels (1966) and The Trip (1967). Nicholson's part was initially to have gone to Rip Torn, who became antagonized by Hopper's distaste for Texans and 'rednecks', being a Texan himself. In the 1990s, he successfully sued Hopper for defamation, after he had claimed on Jay Leno's late night talk show that Torn had pulled a knife on him as part of their disagreement. The record of Hopper's wild and self-aggrandizing behavior during the making of Easy Rider is long and elaborate. Shooting took place from March - May 1968 in Louisiana, New Mexico, California and Arizona. The cast and crew reportedly held their wrap party and then found out that they still needed to shoot the final scene. Hopper initially proposed a 220 minute cut of the film, which is not in existence today, just as other lengthy cuts of the film are deemed lost. The film became the 3rd highest-grossing film of 69, making 41.7 mil. $ (69.5 % of the total gross) in North America. It got nominated for 2 Oscars: Best Supporting Actor (Nicholson), lost to Gig Young in They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, and Best Original Screenplay, lost to William Goldman for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The film was also nominated for a Golden Globe, and a BAFTA; it won a Best First Work award in Cannes and more. Easy Rider is certified fresh at 89 % with an 8 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Easy Rider?
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