Easy Rider, the film equivalent of Jack Kerouac’s rambunctious On the Road novel, legitimatized new subject matter, including casual drugs and sex, and the questioning of the American system. It remains one of the most significant films of the decade in that it was such a new kind of American film. And it was a critical statement about America. Jeremy Larmer complained at the time of Bush’s speech that “Neither film has much to do with what America ever was really like, but they – like the fabricated man who so confidently cites them – are part of the image-mongering culture that makes a reality of its own that is all but inescapable.” Did Easy Rider create a celluloid America of its own from which there was no escapeĮasy Rider was “the” statement of a generation when it was released in the summer of 1969. He enthusiastically declared that Americans had exited the easygoing Easy Rider era and entered a tougher Dirty Harry era.īush stated “We have turned around the permissive philosophy of the 1970s, which made it easy to slip into a life of drug abuse and crime.” In Bush’s view, Clint Eastwood’s “Go ahead, make my day” had replaced sentiments such as Jack Nicholson’s “This used to be a helluva country – I can’t understand what’s gone wrong with it” from Easy Rider, as the very heartbeat of America. On the whole, this film is an out and out classic.During the 1988 presidential campaign, candidate George Bush used the film Easy Rider as an analogy for a passing era of laxness. Classic rock accompanies the pictures of the two men rider their bikes, and it's very cool indeed. Music was, of course, a big thing in the sixties and it's a big thing about this movie. Last but not least, another great thing about Easy Rider is the music. Even here, he shows his charisma and ability to steal the show and that is what he would go on to become famous for doing later in his career.
It's not hard to see why this actor went on to become one of the best of all time.
Jack Nicholson turns up halfway through and steals the show. The two actors brilliantly get into their characters, and after a while you forget that you're watching actors and start to think that these people really are these characters. The acting performances are a big part of the movie, and the two leads Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper stick out the most. That's the theme of the entire movie, and the way that it plays out, and the ending especially, aptly portray the difference between saying something and actually doing it. But like George Hanson says it's one thing to talk about being free, but something else entirely to actually be it. The American Dream has always been about freedom. We follow their exploits as they travel the country meeting various people including, most notably, George Hanson an offbeat lawyer, played by the great Jack Nicholson. It follows two motorbike riders on their way from Los Angeles to the Mardi Gras in New Orleans. The plot is simple and more just a base for the film to deliver it's real sting than anything else. These two were obviously in the thick of what was cool in the sixties, and that gives the film an element of authenticity as we feel like what we're seeing isn't too far away from the things really going on at that time. Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda, men of substance and substance abuse, wrote the film together and Hopper directed it. This film is very much a product of the sixties and, like many things from the decade, will always be fondly remembered. Dennis Hopper's Easy Rider is often cited as being an all time classic, and while I don't think this is a great film in terms of technical brilliance, it sums up the era it was made and the tongue in cheek, cynical take on the 'American dream' is both potent and well done.
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