The Movie Book (Big Ideas Simply Explained) (2016)

IN CONTEXT

GENRE

Road movie

DIRECTOR

Dennis Hopper

WRITERS

Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Terry Southern

STARS

Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson

BEFORE

1953 The Wild One, in which Marlon Brando smolders as a motorcycle gang leader, was the first movie to focus on the idea of outlaw bikers.

1960 Jean-Luc Godard’s À bout de souffle prefigures Easy Rider with its couple of young outlaws on the road, and jump-cut editing.

AFTER

1976 Easy Rider inspires a number of road movies, significant among them Wim Wenders’ Kings of the Road.

Few movies seem to capture a moment in time more completely than Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda’s Easy Rider. It’s the quintessential American road movie, with two youngish men, half hippy, half Hells Angels, setting off on a journey to freedom on their Harley-Davidson motorcycles.

End of the 1960s

There’s no real plot or emotional journey, and the movie’s vague symbolism may seem dated now. But there’s no denying its cultural status at the time. The year it was released, 1969, young people were proclaiming their rejection of the values of the old generation by growing their hair long and dropping out to listen to music and take drugs. Easy Rider reflected this mood, but it went further.

Peter Fonda, the producer and star, came to the project from playing the rebellious leader of a gang of Hells Angels in the movie The Wild Angels (1966), and a TV ad director who takes LSD in The Trip (1967). Both movies were big commercial successes with the younger generation. It seemed only natural to combine the two themes, biker gangs and drugs, in one movie.

Fonda brought in screenwriter Terry Southern to help with the writing and hired Dennis Hopper as his co-star and director. Hopper may at first have seemed like a disastrous choice as director, as the shoot threatened to mire in drug binges and shouting matches. Fonda even threatened to abandon the project. But it may be that very anarchy that made Easy Rider an icon of its time. Hopper felt he was part of a revolution. The disorganized nature of the project was a rude gesture of rebellion.

The rough cut is said to have run for over three hours. Hopper chose to cut out story details to leave behind a series of loosely linked images and moments, held together by a pounding sound track.

Easy Rider helped to spark the New Hollywood phase of filmmaking in the early 1970s, in which directors took a more authorial role, and innovative publicity techniques were used.

West to east

In some ways, the two bikers seem like modern-day cowboys, riding off to find freedom, and their names Wyatt (Peter Fonda) and Billy (Dennis Hopper) recall the Western heroes Wyatt Earp and Billy the Kid. In fact the bikers are nothing so noble. Rather, they are a pair of drifting drug dealers heading east because there’s no longer a Wild West. Their bike bags are stuffed with money made from selling drugs to Mr. Big, and when they are joined by a sharp-suited drunken lawyer (Jack Nicholson), he ends up seeming far more rebellious than them. The title conveys an image of chilled-out bikers, but it actually comes from the slang for living off the earnings of a prostitute.

Easy Rider’s bleak violence ensures that the movie is no hippy trip, but rather an incoherent blast of frustration. In reality, it signaled a disillusioned end to a previous generation’s idealism.

Wyatt and Billy hide the cash they’ve made from drug smuggling in the stars-and-stripes-adorned fuel tank of a chopper, and head to New Orleans for Mardi Gras.

A multitalented actor, writer, director, and photographer, Dennis Hopper carved out a name for himself as one of the wild cards of Hollywood. Born in 1936 in Dodge City, Kansas, he showed early promise as an artist, but was soon drawn to acting and studied at the Actors Studio in New York under the legendary Lee Strasberg. He initially made his name with television work, but it wasn’t until he directed and starred in Easy Rider that he became a celebrity. In later years, Hopper’s problems with alcohol and drugs stalled his progress, although he did direct and star in the excellent punk drama Out of the Blue. Eventually, after entering a rehab program in 1983, his career took off again with riveting performances in such movies as Blue Velvet, and numerous Hollywood bad guy roles. Hopper died in 2010.

1969 Easy Rider

1979 Apocalypse Now

1980 Out of the Blue

1986 Blue Velvet

What else to watch: The Wild One (1953) ✵ À bout de souffle (1960) ✵ Pierrot le Fou (1965) ✵ Woodstock (1970) ✵ Kings of the Road (1976)