Bikers, Captain America (Peter Fonda) and Billy (Dennis Hopper) make a major drug deal and with the profits set sail to look for America inhaling both the landscape and weed along the way in vast quanity. Meeting with both friend and foe as they travel from LA to the Mardi Gras in New Orleans the pair approach the journey with two different temperaments while remaining loyal to each other.
With it's release in 1969, Easy Rider, changed the course of American independent filmmaking by producing a blockbuster of immense proportions that had the suits sitting up in Hollywood taking notice. Today, while still retaining some of its purpose it has become more caricature than message over the decades, unintentionally comic in serious moments with its "oh wow" simplistic take on the world laughable in more than one moment.
Director Hopper's vision is both pretentious and self indulgent whether sitting around a campfire stoning out, trying to get locals to go red neck on them, present a false hippie commune utopia, or stage a bad trip in a graveyard. His performance is both abrasive and annoying as he fulfills the role of hippie stoner to the hilt while Fonda plays the introspective flower child in search of meaning. It is Jack Nicholson, though, as an alcoholic lawyer in a 30 minute supporting role that steals acting honors.
What does make Easy Rider roar however is the landscape and audacious cinematography of Lazlo Kovacs along with an outstanding music score for the ages featuring The Byrds, Hendrix, Dylan and Steppenwolf signature tune "Born to be Wild." Giving the film an energy relative to its time, it informs rather than generically accompany as an afterthought.
An important film that has not aged well in retrospect to what it proposed with its message tarnished only months away with Manson and Altamont waiting in the wings to dissemble the hippie trip with the ugly reality of its utopian vision.
With it's release in 1969, Easy Rider, changed the course of American independent filmmaking by producing a blockbuster of immense proportions that had the suits sitting up in Hollywood taking notice. Today, while still retaining some of its purpose it has become more caricature than message over the decades, unintentionally comic in serious moments with its "oh wow" simplistic take on the world laughable in more than one moment.
Director Hopper's vision is both pretentious and self indulgent whether sitting around a campfire stoning out, trying to get locals to go red neck on them, present a false hippie commune utopia, or stage a bad trip in a graveyard. His performance is both abrasive and annoying as he fulfills the role of hippie stoner to the hilt while Fonda plays the introspective flower child in search of meaning. It is Jack Nicholson, though, as an alcoholic lawyer in a 30 minute supporting role that steals acting honors.
What does make Easy Rider roar however is the landscape and audacious cinematography of Lazlo Kovacs along with an outstanding music score for the ages featuring The Byrds, Hendrix, Dylan and Steppenwolf signature tune "Born to be Wild." Giving the film an energy relative to its time, it informs rather than generically accompany as an afterthought.
An important film that has not aged well in retrospect to what it proposed with its message tarnished only months away with Manson and Altamont waiting in the wings to dissemble the hippie trip with the ugly reality of its utopian vision.