The time is 1970, the Happy-go-lucky Pop culture of the Beatles and the Hippies was quickly devolving into the drug culture plague, as Nixon presided over the beginnings of the various Watergate-related intrigues, and millions of young people protested the horror of the Vietnam war, a war which was broadcast in all its ugliness and violence on the nightly news day after day. As the big eastern cities were continuing to decay and the poverty and the hopelessness of a huge percentage of the American population was recently exposed in the 60's summer race riots, this was a time in American Cinema in which those alienated from society, in films like Easy Rider and Alice's Restaurant and Taxi Driver and Joe became the new American heroes--those people with whom so many of the youth could identify. The anti- hero, like Travis Bickel from Taxi Driver and Joe from "Joe" reigned supreme, and gone were the days of the prominence of the Jimmy Stewarts and John Waynes of previous generations.
No film captured this dispirited, almost depressive time with more insight, imagination and searing truth than Five Easy Pieces. But the film is not depressing in and of itself. On the contrary it is filled with such rich characters and situations, that we are captivated from the opening frames straight through the heart-breaking non-conclusive conclusion. There are moments of great humor as well--in the portrayal of the goofy friends Bobby and Rayette hang out with, to Sally Struther's pre-"All in the Family" hysterical nymphet, to the Lesbian couple's obsession with "crap and filth" in America to the insufferable snobs in Bobby's father's home to the priceless Diner scene and that infamous order of toast.......errr... the chicken sal sand on wheat toast minus the butter, lettuce, mayonnaise.....and chicken salad. Brilliant.
The heart and soul of the film is Jack Nicholson's Bobby. Talented, direction-less, thoughtless, cruel, helpless, trapped--the very essence of the alienated anti-hero of 1970 that all could identify with. He is sympathetic, but poisonous, a product of the times and a rootlessness that is both real and symbolic. Karen Black's Rayette is the polar opposite of Bobby, and her innocent, naive sweetness becomes heartbreaking as she, like all those Bobby touches becomes a victim of his ultimate callousness. But of course no one is more a victim of this alienated spirit than Bobby himself. He'll escape from his friends, his life, the world around him, those who love him or want to love him so desperately....but the ultimate tragedy is that he'll never escape from himself. One knows where Bobby will end up...alone, lost, bitter, all beauty gone from his life, all purpose a distant and faded memory.
No film captured this dispirited, almost depressive time with more insight, imagination and searing truth than Five Easy Pieces. But the film is not depressing in and of itself. On the contrary it is filled with such rich characters and situations, that we are captivated from the opening frames straight through the heart-breaking non-conclusive conclusion. There are moments of great humor as well--in the portrayal of the goofy friends Bobby and Rayette hang out with, to Sally Struther's pre-"All in the Family" hysterical nymphet, to the Lesbian couple's obsession with "crap and filth" in America to the insufferable snobs in Bobby's father's home to the priceless Diner scene and that infamous order of toast.......errr... the chicken sal sand on wheat toast minus the butter, lettuce, mayonnaise.....and chicken salad. Brilliant.
The heart and soul of the film is Jack Nicholson's Bobby. Talented, direction-less, thoughtless, cruel, helpless, trapped--the very essence of the alienated anti-hero of 1970 that all could identify with. He is sympathetic, but poisonous, a product of the times and a rootlessness that is both real and symbolic. Karen Black's Rayette is the polar opposite of Bobby, and her innocent, naive sweetness becomes heartbreaking as she, like all those Bobby touches becomes a victim of his ultimate callousness. But of course no one is more a victim of this alienated spirit than Bobby himself. He'll escape from his friends, his life, the world around him, those who love him or want to love him so desperately....but the ultimate tragedy is that he'll never escape from himself. One knows where Bobby will end up...alone, lost, bitter, all beauty gone from his life, all purpose a distant and faded memory.