Easy Rider (1969), directed by Dennis Hopper

One week later. I've almost used up all my prewritten entries, so daily entries are an unlikely possibility. Doesn't seem to matter that much though.

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "The Pusher", by Steppenwolf

     The paragraph I had originally wrote to begin this entry was a lot more impassioned than I had anticipated. In that paragraph I decried the tendency in our society to reduce pieces of our culture, or counterculture in this case, into stereotypes and pastiche in order to more easily consume and dispose of it. We are so happy to listen to ‘classic’ rock and wear tye-dye shirts, but we dismiss their dreams and ideas as ‘hippie ramblings’. True, I conceded, that their goals were a bit lofty, and maybe the majority of what we call hippies were simply going with the, but couldn’t we at least acknowledge them. Do we have to so fervently dismiss every idea that we deem as strange? We may be set in our ways, and though it may feel at times that we are irrevocably bound by them, that doesn’t mean we are. It just takes a bit of effort.

     That’s what I first wrote as the opener for this entry, before I decided to erase it. Try as I might to reach a higher standard for myself, I’ve been guilty of the same consumerist behaviour I had attacked other people for. Maybe it doesn’t really matter, since so few people are going to read this anyway. Maybe all the things I’ve said up to this point don’t make any fucking sense to anyone but me. I don’t know.

     Those are the thoughts running through my mind after watching Easy Rider, that I’m viewing a culture quite similar yet foreign to my own. The film tells the story of two L.A. bikers, the introverted Captain America (Peter Fonda and the extroverted Billy (Dennis Hopper), as they travel to the East Coast in the hopes of retiring after a particularly lucrative drug deal. After being jailed for ‘parading without a permit’, they meet up with a quite drunk George Hanson (Jack Nicholson), who joins them in their mission of going to Mardi Gras, home to some of the finest whores around. A great idea, but how well can you do when everyone you meet hates your fucking guts?

     The shortest summary I’ve written so far right there. Soak it in.

     Freedom, that’s what this movie is about. The freedom to dress how you like to dress, to do what you like to do, and live how you want to live. Easy Rider makes it a point to to state that those who preach the virtues of freedom the most are the most fearful of it, and I can’t say that’s an inaccurate way of looking at it. If our heroes Captain America and Billy aren’t causing others to suffer, does it really matter if they like to smoke marijuana and ride motorcycles? We are shown very clearly that no, it doesn’t really matter at all, except to the uneducated and the authoritarian (the film takes place entirely within the South, which I doubt was unintentional). Yes, freedom is the key word here, whether you’re living in a commune in the desert or in the heart of the city. I’d keep my eyes out for the mime troupe though, if I were you.

     You can’t have a motorcycle in a movie without having someone ride it, and a significant portion of Easy Rider is dedicated to Captain America and Billy driving through the American countryside. Some truly amazing countryside, if I do say so myself. My favorite traveling scenes in the movie have to be near the beginning of the movie when they’re going through the Southwest, you take in these absolutely gorgeous red hills and clear open skies that stretch out as far as the eye can see and it makes you happy to know that this beautiful imagery is real, it has form and substance away from the painted backdrops of the Hollywood backlot. I was so intrigued by the locations used by Easy Rider that for a while I wished to visit a place like Texas or New Mexico, just to get a glimpse of that near-mythical landscape. It’s the first time I’ve genuinely wanted to go to the Southwest of my own volition, which speaks of the power of this film to provoke such a bizarre reaction.

     Coming into this film, I expected guys driving around on motorcycles, and I expected rock ‘n’ roll music. Easy Rider has motorcycles and rock music, certainly, but the overall tone of the soundtrack is much more mellow and less ‘classic rock’ than I had anticipated. Of course you have Steppenwolf’s “Born to be Wild”, the song so intricately connected with this movie that Dennis Hopper abruptly cuts it off before it’s even finished. Also making an appearance is the Jimi Hendrix Experience, the Byrds, Roger McGuinn (former member of the Byrds), with some unknown-but-appreciated groups like the Holy Modal Rounders rounding out the cast. As someone who bathed their minds in 60’s rock music for several years I might be a little biased in saying this is a great soundtrack, but it does exactly what I want a soundtrack to do: Helping to set the tone for the scenes being presented, making average scenes more appealing, and transporting me into the world of the film. There’s much more a soundtrack than just taking cool songs and throwing them without thought into the gumbo that is the movie. In that metaphor, the film soundtrack is represented by the shrimp. Cinematography is the dirty rice.

     There’s plenty of times in my life that I’ve hungered for escape, to toss away responsibilities and to live a life of quiet comfort. That’s the appeal of Easy Rider really, that deep down we wish we could be Captain America and Billy; men who live by nobody’s rules but their own. Hell, I guess that’s what everything’s about, isn’t it? Movies, music, television, video games, art, it’s all about getting the fuck out of our own lives without actually doing it.

     The point is that I liked the movie, everything else I’ve written is tacked on bullshit.

Result: Recommended