| Easy Rider | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Dennis Hopper |
| Written by |
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| Produced by | Peter Fonda |
| Starring |
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| Cinematography | László Kovács |
| Edited by | |
Production companies |
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| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
Release dates |
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Running time | 96 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $360,000–400,000[2] |
| Box office | $60 million[3] |
Easy Rider is a 1969 Americanroaddrama film written byPeter Fonda,Dennis Hopper, andTerry Southern. It was produced by Fonda and directed by Hopper. Fonda and Hopper play twobikers who travel through theAmerican Southwest and theSouth, carrying money made from acocaine deal. Other actors in the film includeJack Nicholson,Karen Black, andToni Basil. The success ofEasy Rider helped spark theNew Hollywood era of filmmaking during the early 1970s.
A landmarkcounterculture film, and a "touchstone for a generation" which "captured the national imagination" and "mood of the drug culture" at the time.[4]Easy Rider explores thesocietal landscape, issues, and tensions towardsadolescents in the United States during the 1960s including the rise of thehippie movement,drug use, andcommunal lifestyle.[5][6] Real drugs were used in scenes showing the use of marijuana and other substances.[7]
Anindependent production,[8][9] the film was released byColumbia Pictures on July 14, 1969, and earned $60 million worldwide compared to a modest filming budget of $400,000.[2][3] Critics have praised the performances, directing, writing, soundtrack, and visuals. It received twoAcademy Awards nominations forBest Original Screenplay andBest Supporting Actor (Jack Nicholson). In 1998, the film was selected for preservation in the United StatesNational Film Registry by theLibrary of Congress as being "culturally, historically, oraesthetically significant".[10]
Wyatt and Billy are freewheeling motorcyclists. After smuggling cocaine fromMexico toLos Angeles, they sell their haul and receive a large sum of money. With the cash stuffed into a plastic tube hidden inside the Stars & Stripes–painted fuel tank of Wyatt's California-stylechopper (motorcycle), they ride eastward, aiming to reachNew Orleans in time for theMardi Gras festival.
During their trip, Wyatt and Billy stop to repair a flat tire on Wyatt's bike at a farmstead in Arizona and have a meal with the farmer and his family. Later, Wyatt picks up a hippiehitch-hiker, and he invites them to visit hiscommune, where they stay for the rest of the day. The notion of "free love" appears to be practiced, with two of the women, Lisa and Sarah, seemingly sharing the affections of the hitch-hiking commune member before turning their attention to Wyatt and Billy. As the bikers leave, the hitch-hiker gives Wyatt someLSD for him to share with "the right people, at the right time".
Later while riding along with a parade inNew Mexico, the pair are arrested for "parading without a permit" and thrown in jail. There, they befriend lawyer George Hanson, who has spent the night in jail after overindulging in alcohol. After mentioning having done work for theACLU along with other conversation, George helps them get out of jail and decides to travel with Wyatt and Billy to New Orleans. As they camp that night, Wyatt and Billy introduce George tomarijuana. As analcoholic and a"square", George is reluctant to try it due to his fear of becoming "hooked" and itleading to worse drugs, but quickly relents.
Stopping to eat at a small-town Louisiana diner, the trio attracts the attention of the locals. The girls in the restaurant think they are exciting, but the local men and a police officer make denigrating comments and taunts. Wyatt, Billy, and George decide to leave without any fuss. They make camp outside town. In the middle of the night, a group of locals attack the sleeping trio, beating them with clubs. Billy screams and brandishes a knife, and the attackers leave. Wyatt and Billy suffer minor injuries, but George has been bludgeoned to death. Wyatt and Billy wrap George's body in his sleeping bag, gather his belongings, and vow to return the items to his family.
They continue to New Orleans and find abrothel George had told them about earlier. Takingprostitutes Karen and Mary with them, Wyatt and Billy wander the parade-filled streets of the Mardi Gras celebration. They end up in aFrench Quarter cemetery, where all four ingest the LSD the hitch-hiker had given to Wyatt. Later at their campsite, while Billy enthusiastically recounts their travels, Wyatt melancholically muses that they "blew it" in theirquest.
The next morning, as they are overtaken on a two-lane country road by two local men in an older pickup truck, the passenger in the truck reaches for a shotgun, saying he will scare them. As they pass Billy, the passenger fires, and Billy has alowside crash. The truck passes Wyatt, who has stopped, and Wyatt rides back to Billy, finding him lying flat on the side of the road and covered in blood. Wyatt tells Billy he is going to get help and covers Billy's wound with his own leather jacket. Wyatt then rides down the road toward the pickup as it makes a U-turn. Passing in the opposite direction, the passenger fires the shotgun again, this time through the driver's-side window. Wyatt's riderless motorcycle flies through the air and comes apart before landing and being engulfed in flames.
Hopper and Fonda's first collaboration was inThe Trip (1967), written by Jack Nicholson, which had themes and characters similar to those ofEasy Rider.[11] Peter Fonda had become "anicon of thecounterculture" inThe Wild Angels (1966), where he established "apersona he would develop further inThe Trip andEasy Rider."[12]The Trip also popularized LSD, whileEasy Rider went on to "celebrate '60s counterculture" but does so "stripped of its innocence."[13] Author Katie Mills said thatThe Trip is a way point along the "metamorphosis of the rebel road story from aBeatrelic into its hippiereincarnation asEasy Rider", and connected Peter Fonda's characters in those two films, along with his character inThe Wild Angels, deviating from the "formulaic biker" persona and critiquing "commodity-oriented filmmakers appropriatingavant-garde film techniques."[11] It was also a step in the transition fromindependent film intoHollywood's mainstream, and whileThe Trip was criticized as a faux, popularizedunderground film made by Hollywood insiders,Easy Rider "interrogates" the attitude that underground film must "remain strictly segregated from Hollywood."[11] Mills also wrote that the famous acid trip scene inEasy Rider "clearly derives from their first tentative explorations as filmmakers inThe Trip."[11]The Trip andThe Wild Angels had been low-budget films released byAmerican International Pictures and were both successful. When Fonda tookEasy Rider to AIP, however, as it was Hopper's first film as director, they wanted to be able to replace him if the film went overbudget, so Fonda took the film toBert Schneider ofRaybert Productions andColumbia Pictures instead.[14]
When seeing a still of himself andBruce Dern inThe Wild Angels, Peter Fonda had the idea of a modernWestern, involving two bikers traveling across the country after a drug sale. He called Dennis Hopper, and the two decided to turn that into a movie,The Loners, with Hopper directing, Fonda producing, and both starring and writing. Back in LA, Fonda introduced Hopper toCliff Vaughs, who Peter had met after his second arrest for marijuana in 1967, when Cliff interviewed Peter for radio stationKRLA. Over multiple meetings, Vaughs provided his experiences riding a chopper through the South while working on civil rights with theSNCC in 1963–1965, including being shot at by two duck hunters in a pickup while he was riding his chopper with Iris Greenburg on the back, between Jackson and Little Rock.[15] Vaughs had a handmade poster on his living room wall with collaged letters spelling 'Where has my easy rider gone?' atop a poster from the Mae West filmShe Done Him Wrong.[16] Vaughs was made Associate Producer of the film, and designed/built the two choppers, with the assistance of Ben Hardy and Larry Marcus.[17] Fonda and Hopper later brought in screenwriterTerry Southern. The film was mostly shot without a screenplay, withad-libbed lines, and production started with only the outline and the names of the protagonists. Keeping the Western theme, Wyatt was named afterWyatt Earp and Billy afterBilly the Kid.[1] However, Southern disputed that Hopper wrote much of the script. In an interview published in 2016 [Southern died in 1995] he said, "You know if Den Hopper improvises a dozen lines and six of them survive the cutting room floor he'll put in for screenplay credit. Now it would be almost impossible to exaggerate his contribution to the film—but, by George, he manages to do it every time."[18] According to Southern, Fonda was under contract to produce a motorcycle film with A.I.P., which Fonda had agreed to allow Hopper to direct. According to Southern, Fonda and Hopper didn't seek screenplay credit until after the first screenings of the film, which required Southern's agreement due towriters guild policies. Southern says he agreed out of a sense of camaraderie, and that Hopper later took credit for the entire script.[18]
According to Terry Southern's biographer, Lee Hill, the part of George Hanson had been written for Southern's friend, actorRip Torn. When Torn met with Hopper and Fonda at a New York restaurant in early 1968 to discuss the role, Hopper began ranting about the "rednecks" he had encountered on his scouting trip to the South. Torn, a Texan, took exception to some of Hopper's remarks, and the two almost came to blows, as a result of which Torn withdrew from the project. Torn was replaced by Jack Nicholson. In 1994,Jay Leno interviewed Hopper aboutEasy RideronThe Tonight Show, and during the interview, Hopper falsely claimed that Torn had pulled a knife on him during the altercation when it was actually the other way around. This infuriated Torn, so he sued Hopper for defamation seeking punitive damages. Torn ultimately prevailed against Hopper on all counts.[1]
The filming budget ofEasy Rider was $360,000 to $400,000[2][7] ($2.36 million to $2.62 million in 2024)[19]. Peter Fonda said that on top of this, he personally paid for the costs of travel and lodging for the crew, saying, "Everybody was taking my credit cards and would pay for all the hotels, the food, the gas, everything withDiner's Club".[20][7] CinematographerLaszlo Kovacs said that an additional $1 million, "about three times the budget for shooting the rest of the film" was spent on the licensed music tracks that were added during the editing.[21] He already had made twooutlaw biker films and suggested that a1968 Chevy Impala convertible be purchased to carry his camera smoothly, with speeds not exceeding 25 mph (40 km/h).[citation needed]
According to associate producer Bill Hayward in interviews included as part of the bonus DVD feature, "Shaking the Cage", Hopper was difficult on set.[7] During test shooting on location in New Orleans, with documentary filmmakerBaird Bryant on camera,[22] Hopper fought with the production's ad hoc crew for control. At one point, a paranoid Hopper demanded camera operatorBarry Feinstein hand over the footage he shot that day so he could keep it safe with him in his hotel room. Enraged, Feinstein hurled the film cans at Hopper and the two got into a physical confrontation.[7] After this turmoil, Hopper and Fonda decided to assemble a proper crew for the rest of the film.[7] Consequently, the rest of the film was shot on35mm film, while the New Orleans sequences were shot on16mm film.[22] The hippie commune was recreated from pictures and shot at a site overlookingMalibu Canyon on Piuma Canyon Road, since theNew Buffalo commune inArroyo Hondo nearTaos, New Mexico, did not permit shooting there.[21] Among theextras who appear in the sequence are actorsDan Haggerty andCarrie Snodgress, musicianJim Sullivan, and Fonda's daughterBridget.
A short clip near the beginning of the film shows Wyatt and Billy onRoute 66 inFlagstaff, Arizona, passing a large figure of a lumberjack. That lumberjack statue—once situated in front of the Lumberjack Café—remains in Flagstaff, but now stands inside theJ. Lawrence Walkup Skydome on the campus ofNorthern Arizona University. A second, very similar statue was also moved from the Lumberjack Café to the exterior of the Skydome.[23] Most of the film is shot outside with natural lighting. Hopper said all the outdoor shooting was an intentional choice on his part, because "God is a greatgaffer." Besides the camera car, the production used twofive-ton trucks, one for the equipment and pulling an 750 Amp generator trailer, and one for the up to four motorcycles, with the cast and crew in a motor home.[21] One of the locations wasMonument Valley.[21]
The restaurant scenes with Fonda, Hopper, and Nicholson were shot inMorganza, Louisiana.[21] The men and girls in the scenes were Morganza locals.[21] In order to inspire more vitriolic commentary from the local men, Hopper told them the characters of Billy, Wyatt, and George had raped and killed a girl outside of town.[7] The scene in which Billy and Wyatt were shot was filmed onLouisiana Highway 105 North, just outsideKrotz Springs, and the two men in the pickup truck—Johnny David and D.C. Billodeau—were Krotz Springs locals.
While shooting the cemetery scene, Hopper tried to convince Fonda to talk to the statue of theMadonna as though it wereFonda's mother, who had taken her own life when he was 10, and ask her why she left him. Although Fonda was reluctant, he eventually complied. Later Fonda used the inclusion of this scene, along with the concluding scene, as leverage to persuadeBob Dylan to allow the use ofRoger McGuinn's cover of "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)".[7]
Despite being filmed in the first half of 1968, roughly betweenMardi Gras and the assassination ofRobert F. Kennedy, with production starting on February 22,[24] the film did not have a U.S.premiere until July 1969, after having won an award at theCannes film festival in May. The delay was partially due to a protracted editing process. Inspired by2001: A Space Odyssey, one of Hopper's proposed cuts was 220 minutes long, including extensive use of the "flash-forward" narrative device, wherein scenes from later in the movie are inserted into the current scene.[7] Only one flash-forward survives in the final edit: when Wyatt in the New Orleans brothel has a premonition of the final scene. At the request ofBob Rafelson andBert Schneider,Henry Jaglom was brought in to edit the film into its current form, while Schneider purchased a trip to Taos for Hopper so he wouldn't interfere with the recut. Upon seeing the final cut, Hopper was originally displeased, saying that his movie was "turned into a TV show," but he eventually accepted, claiming that Jaglom had crafted the film the way Hopper had originally intended. Despite the large part he played in shaping the film, Jaglom only received credit as an "Editorial Consultant."[1]
It is unclear what the exact running time of original rough cut of the movie was: four hours, four and a half hours, or five hours.[7] In 1992, the film's producers, Schneider and Rafelson, sued Columbia Pictures over missing negatives, edit footage and damaged prints, holding them negligent concerning these assets. Some of the scenes which were in the original cut but were deleted are:[25]
Easy Rider's style—the jump cuts, time shifts, flash forwards, flashbacks, jerky hand-held cameras, fractured narrative and improvised acting—can be seen as a cinematic translation of thepsychedelic experience.Peter Biskind, author ofEasy Riders, Raging Bulls wrote, "LSD did create a frame of mind that fractured experience and that LSD experience had an effect on films likeEasy Rider."[26]
WhileEasy Rider is famous for the Harley-Davidson choppers, the movie actually begins with the characters riding two European-madedirt bikes, Fonda on a redBultaco Pursang, Hopper onNorton P11 Ranger. In total, twodirt bikes, and four former police bikes were used in the film. The 1949, 1950 and 1952Harley-Davidson FLHydra-Glide bikes were purchased at an auction for $500,[28] equivalent to about $4700 in 2024. Each bike had a backup to make sure that shooting could continue in case one of the old machines failed or got wrecked accidentally. The main motorcycles for the film, based onhardtailframes andpanhead engines, were designed and built by two African Americanchopper builders—Cliff Vaughs andBen Hardy—reflecting chopper designs popular among Black motorcyclists at the time, and following ideas of Peter Fonda, and were handled by Tex Hall andDan Haggerty during shooting.[28] Cliff Vaughs and Ben Hardy were not mentioned in the movie credits.[29]
One "Captain America" was demolished in the final scene, while the other three were stolen and probably taken apart before their significance as movieprops became known.[28] The demolished bike was rebuilt byDan Haggerty and offered for auction in October 2014 by Profiles in History, aCalabasas, California-based auction house with an estimated value of $1–1.2 million. The provenance of existing Captain America motorcycles is unclear, and has been the subject of much litigation.[30] TheEMP Museum inSeattle identified a Captain America chopper displayed there as a rebuilt original movie prop. Many replicas have been made since the film's release, including examples at theDeutsches Zweirad- und NSU-Museum (Germany),National Motorcycle Museum (Iowa),Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum (Alabama), andHarley-Davidson Museum (Milwaukee).[28][31][32]
Hopper and Fonda hosted awrap party for the movie and then realized they had not yet shot the final campfire scene. Thus, it was shot after the bikes had already been stolen, which is why they are not visible in the background as in the other campfire scenes.[1][28]
The film received mostly positive reviews from critics.Vincent Canby ofThe New York Times called it "pretty but lower case cinema" despite the "upper case" "pious statement about our society which is sick". He was mildly impressed by the photography, rock score and Nicholson's performance.[33]Penelope Gilliatt inThe New Yorker said that it "speaks tersely and aptly for this American age, that is both the best of times and the worst of times."[34]
Roger Ebert addedEasy Rider to his "Great Movies" list in 2004.[35]Easy Rider holds an 84% rating onRotten Tomatoes based on 56 reviews, with an average rating of 7.70/10. The site's consensus says, "Edgy and seminal,Easy Rider encapsulates the dreams, hopes, and hopelessness of1960s counterculture."[36]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 85 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[37]
The film opened on July 14, 1969, at the Beekman theater in New York City, and grossed a house record of $40,422 ($264,000 in 2024[19]) in its first week.[38] It grossed even more the following week with $46,609.[39] In its 14th week of release, it was the number one film at the U.S. box office and remained there for three weeks.[40][41] It was thefourth highest-grossing film of 1969, with a worldwide gross of $60 million ($393 million in 2024[19]), including $41.7 million domestically in the U.S. and Canada.[3][42]
In 1998,Easy Rider was added to the United StatesNational Film Registry, having been deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."[10]
In April 2019, a restored version of the film was selected to be shown in the Cannes Classics section at the2019 Cannes Film Festival.[50]
American Film Institute Lists
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Along withBonnie and Clyde andThe Graduate,Easy Rider helped kick-start theNew Hollywood era during the late 1960s and 1970s.[54] The major studios realized that money could be made from low-budget films made byavant-garde directors. Heavily influenced by theFrench New Wave, the films of the so-called "post-classical Hollywood" came to represent a counterculture generation increasingly disillusioned with its government as well as the government's effects on the world at large and the establishment in general.[54] AlthoughJack Nicholson appears only as a supporting actor and in the last half of the film, the standout performance signaled his arrival as a movie star,[54] along with his subsequent filmFive Easy Pieces in which he had the lead role.Vice PresidentSpiro Agnew criticizedEasy Rider, along with the bandJefferson Airplane, as examples of the permissiveness of the 1960s counterculture.[55]
The film's success, and the new era of Hollywood which it helped usher in, gave Hopper the chance to direct again with complete artistic control. The result was 1971'sThe Last Movie, which was a notable box office and critical failure, effectively ending Hopper's career as a director for well over a decade.[citation needed]
It also gave Fonda the chance to direct withThe Hired Hand, although he rarely produced again.[56]
The movie was financed with money made fromthe Monkees, and features a cameo of record producerPhil Spector in the opening scenes, but neither provided any music. The "groundbreaking" soundtrack featured popular rock artists includingthe Band,the Byrds,the Jimi Hendrix Experience, andSteppenwolf.[57] Editor and negative cutter Donn Cambern used various music from his own record collection to make watching up to 80 hours of bike footage more interesting during editing.[21] Most of Cambern's music was used, with licensing costs of $1 million, triple the film's budget.[21] The film's extensive use of pop and rock music for the soundtrack was similar to what had recently been used for 1967'sThe Graduate, including songs being used more than once, or being adapted for the movie.
Bob Dylan was asked to contribute music, but was reluctant to use his own recording of "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)", so a version performed byByrds frontmanRoger McGuinn was used instead. Also, instead of writing an entirely new song for the film, Dylan simply wrote out the first verse of "Ballad of Easy Rider" and told the filmmakers, "Give this to McGuinn, he'll know what to do with it."[58] McGuinn completed the song and performed it in the film.[59]
Originally, Peter Fonda had intended the bandCrosby, Stills, Nash, & Young to write an entirely original soundtrack for the film, but this failed to materialize for two reasons.[60] For one, Cambern edited the footage much more closely to what were only meant as temporary tracks than was customary at the time, which led to everyone involved finding them much more suited to the material than they had originally thought. Also, upon watching a screening of the film with Cambern's edits, the group felt they could not improve on the music that was used.[7] On the other hand, Hopper increasingly got control over every aspect over the course of the project and decided to throw CSNY out behind Fonda's back, telling the band as an excuse, "Look, you guys are really good musicians, but honestly, anybody who rides in a limo can't comprehend my movie, so I'm gonna have to say no to this, and if you guys try to get in the studio again, I may have to cause you some bodily harm."[60]
Inspired by the movie, Hendrix later wrote a song "Ezy Ryder", with lyrics reflecting the film's themes, whileIron Butterfly wrote "Easy Rider (Let the Wind Pay the Way)".
The film was first released to DVD on December 7, 1999, as a special edition from Columbia Pictures. Special features included an audio commentary track with Dennis Hopper; the documentaryEasy Rider: Shaking the Cage (1999); production notes; and new interviews with Peter Fonda and Hopper.[61] It received aBlu-ray release on October 20, 2009.[62]
In November 2010, the film was digitally remastered and released byThe Criterion Collection as part of the box setAmerica Lost and Found: The BBS Story. It included features from previous DVD releases; the documentaryBorn to Be Wild (1995); television excerpts showing Hopper and Fonda at the Cannes Film Festival; and a new video interview withBBS co-founderStephen Blauner.[58] On November 23, 2014, a Blu-ray SteelBook was released.[62] On May 3, 2016, Criterion re-releasedEasy Rider as a 2-disc collection.[62]
In 2012, a sequel to the movie was released, titledEasy Rider: The Ride Back and directed by Dustin Rikert.[63] The film is about the family of Wyatt "Captain America" Williams from the 1940s to the present day. No members of the original cast or crew were involved with the film, which was produced and written by amateur filmmaker Phil Pitzer, who had purchased the sequel rights toEasy Rider.[64] Pitzer pursued legal action againstBob Rafelson andBert Schneider in order to block them from reclaiming the rights to the film.[64]
Bibliography
Further reading
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