LuckyGraveyardBoots Review of Easy Rider

Easy Rider (1969)

One of the most intriguing and provocative I have seen

[10/10 · 9 May 2006]

You can look at it as important in either of two ways: either it's the key film of the '60's and the singularly elusive way to understanding that generation, or it's a searing look at just how, why, and where the American Dream finally died - in this way it stonedly resonates with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (set in 1971) even though F&L is more about how the American Dream got crippled, addicted to something vague, and kept limping around in the desert for no particular reason - than its actual death. Either way, you have to watch it at least once in your life. It's also famous for popularizing the song "Born to be Wild", motorcycles, and Jack Nicholson, so it's plenty of fun. It starts and ends very mysteriously, but it seems oddly seamless, in the same way that it's a timeless journey while being extremely 'dated', so to speak. Billy and Captain America (played by Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda, respectively) pop out of the landscape on their motorbikes, purportedly from L.A. although there is really no way of knowing who they are or where they're from. Bound for New Orleans in time for Mardi Gras, they ride all day through the heartland of the USA and camp out at night because nobody will let them stay in a hotel. After a surreal stay at a hippie commune in the middle of nowhere (complete with its own come-again Jesus) they continue, only to be arrested in a small Southern town for 'parading without a permit'. It is there that they meet George (Jack Nicholson), a rich man's son with a mind of his own who decides to come with them to New Orleans to a legendary whorehouse. The movie begins to all make sense during a scene with George by a campfire following the first of several nasty hillbilly encounters, in which George theorizes that the reason people like Billy and Captain America are ostracized by a comfortable middle class is that people are afraid of freedom...they can talk about it at length, but when it actually comes to a totally free person, not tied down by anything, people hate them because they know how trapped they are. True freedom is scary to them. By the tragic ending, we see that it's true. It seems like this film is one long easy ride towards the end - symbolized by death, a cemetery scene towards the finish, the hippies sowing nothing but sand on their fields. Even the characters seem mythological, looking back...George is the voice of reason, ultimately silenced by fear of the unknown. Billy, a wild, distrustful schizophrenic, is representative of all those outcast by society or deemed too irregular to exist by normal standards. And Captain America - brooding, thoughtful, restrained - seems very much like the Dream itself in its final days...forever contemplating where it's gone, and not giving much thought to where it's going next. All in all, it's key to understanding a lot of things. In that landscape, with everything stripped away (home, possessions, dialogue...everything but the spirit) anything could seem possible. And Easy Rider is one of those rare movies that don't give you much to go on. What you take away from it is entirely dependent on the thought you bring to it.