'Easy Rider' directed by Dennis Hopper.

Produced by: Peter Fonda.

Written by: Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern.

Starring: Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson.

Studio: Raybert Productions and Pando Company Inc.

Distributed by: Columbia Pictures.

Year of release: 1969.

Run time: 94 Minutes.

Budget: $340, 000.

Gross revenue: $41, 728, 598.

Easy Rider is one of those movie masterpieces that everyone tells you you have to see. I only just got around to seeing it for the first time recently on blu-ray, which shows I've got a lot of work to do as a pseudo film-critic. I'd heard about it in the past, and I also must have seen the first ten minutes or so of the movie, because I remember the iconic opening credits which depict Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper riding huge choppers, as Born to be Wild plays on the soundtrack. For some reason I always thought that it was an action film of some kind. When I put the disc in to watch it, I thought that the entire 90 minutes would consist of two bad mother fuckers riding around America, robbing banks and running from the law. How wrong I was.

In reality, Easy Rider is a tale about the pursuit of the American dream at the end of the 1960s in America. Peter Fonda plays Wyatt, or “Captain America”, a free-loving dude dressed in leather adorned with the American flag, and Dennis Hopper plays Billy, a more intense hippy who knocks around in a wardrobe imitation of traditional Native American dress. Throughout the course of the movie, they travel on their bikes across America; giving lifts to hitch-hikers, including the leader of a hippie commune, and a young lawyer for the ACLU. All the while they have to try and avoid getting their heads caved in by local townsfolk who don't happen to take kindly to their long hair and free life-style.

This film is significant in so many ways. Thematically, it was the first movie to really deal with the collapse of the hippie way of life, and the subsequent rise of a more conservative social zeitgeist in American society. This is of course illustrated by a pervading sense of anxiety throughout the film. Our protagonists are drug-runners, who score a white powder that could be heroin or cocaine-- it's never specifically stated which-- and sell it to a rich guy played by Phil Spector in his famous cameo. They travel across America with the cash from the deal hidden in plastic tubing which is concealed in the gas tanks of their bikes. In the first act, there is the lingering threat that their cash stash will be discovered and stolen by the first hitch-hiker they pick up. This creates and ambient feeling of menace which escalates as the film plays out.

Make no mistake, this is no hippie movie. You don't get to watch Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper stoned off their tits running around dewy meadows for 90 minutes. The themes explored aren't as pleasant as that. Rather, Easy Rider is more concerned with showing how incompatible the hippy ideal is with the human race, which is, by virtue of biology perhaps, vicious. There is a sense of seediness to virtually all the characters the protagonists encounter. The first hitch-hiker they pick up is a nameless leader of a hippy commune (Luke Askew credited as 'Stranger on Highway'), and when the protagonists accompany him to said commune, the whole establishment seems just a little bit too creepy. The leader appears to be in a relationship with multiple women at once, and the followers are planting seeds in baron soil in the futile hope that they will be able to live off “...simple food, for [their] simple tastes...” It's not a thriving community at all; it almost appears as if they are barely managing to survive.

Things get a little better when the pair encounter Jack Nicholson's character, George Hanson, who is an alcoholic lawyer yearning for life on the road himself. After he springs them out of gaol, the protagonists agree to give him a ride to New Orleans. During the ride, Hanson tries weed for the first time and spouts off a monologue about UFOs and an idealistic alien society-- which according to the retrospective documentary on the disc was all ad-libbed by Nicholson. Later on, Nicholson also gets to deliver the most iconic exchange of dialogue in the movie, and maybe even in the history of American cinema itself. After the trio are run out of a local cafe because of their appearance, they set-up a camp fire and Hopper and Nicholson start to discuss the events of the night:

George Hanson: You know, this used to be a helluva good country. I can't understand what's gone wrong with it.

Billy: Man, everybody got chicken, that's what happened. Hey, we can't even get into like, a second-rate hotel, I mean, a second-rate motel, you dig? They think we're gonna cut their throat or somethin'. They're scared, man.

George Hanson: They're not scared of you. They're scared of what you represent to 'em.

Billy: Hey, man. All we represent to them, man, is somebody who needs a haircut.

George Hanson: Oh, no. What you represent to them is freedom.

Billy: What the hell is wrong with freedom? That's what it's all about.

George Hanson: Oh, yeah, that's right. That's what's it's all about, all right. But talkin' about it and bein' it, that's two different things. I mean, it's real hard to be free when you are bought and sold in the marketplace. Of course, don't ever tell anybody that they're not free, 'cause then they're gonna get real busy killin' and maimin' to prove to you that they are. Oh, yeah, they're gonna talk to you, and talk to you, and talk to you about individual freedom. But they see a free individual, it's gonna scare 'em.

Billy: Well, it don't make 'em runnin' scared.

George Hanson: No, it makes 'em dangerous. Buh, neh! Neh! Neh! Neh! Swamp!

This exchange pretty much sums up the entire purpose of the movie. It's a rather scathing indictment of both capitalism and the current model of liberal democracy, where conceptual terms like 'freedom' are almost Orwellian doublespeak. It's really rare that you get to see a film where the entire thesis can be so eloquently put in one poignant line, and this is one of them.

Another way in which this film is significant rests in the ramifications it had for the future of American cinema. Prior to the release of Easy Rider, Hollywood films were all highly polished, stylised, and sanitised for the purpose of broad appeal to audiences. The success of Easy Rider, and other movies like The Graduate and Bonnie and Clyde led Hollywood production studios to finance independent films made by more avante-garde directors. This New Hollywood environment would ultimately lead to such classics as Apocalypse Now and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. It was not until the creation of the contemporary blockbuster, thanks to directors like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, that Hollywood would return to producing more stylised projects.

In terms of contemporary watchability, Easy Rider is still a delight. Whilst viewing the movie, I was consistently reminded of one of my favourite novels, On The Road by Jack Kerouac. Both are set in different time periods, but both deal with this idea of the elusive and illusive American dream, and the anxiety that comes with the consciousness raiser that is existentialism. The soundtrack absolutely shines in this movie. Watching the protagonists ride their bikes to the tune of The Weight by The Band is a tremendous moment, that I suspect won't be as good the second time round. All in all, Easy Rider is a disturbing, yet profoundly touching film, that haunts the viewer long after the credits have rolled.

Before I conclude this review, I just wanted to mention how interesting the retrospective documentary is on blu-ray disc. Watching the film, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the whole thing was a professional experience for Fonda and Nicohlson, however after hearing them talk about the production, you realise that making Easy Rider was fraught with the same difficulties that are plot developments in the movie.

One example? Well on the doco, Peter Fonda recalls shooting the famous LSD trip sequence: Dennis Hopper told him to sit on the lap of the statue of Queen Elizabeth and talk to it as if it were his mother. Of course, Peter Fonda's mother committed suicide when he was just ten, and Fonda had yet to deal with the emotions surrounding such a tragic event. Fonda and Hopper fought about for a while and then Fonda asked: “Why would I do that?” and Hopper said “Because I'm the director, man!”

Five stars: