Film: Easy Rider
Director: Dennis Hopper
Country: USA
Released: July 1969
Runtime: 96 minutes
Genre: Road Movie
Studio: Raybert Productions / Columbia
Influenced: Robert Altman, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Ken Loach, Wim Wenders
Before adding Easy Rider to the list, I had to think hard about whether it was truly worthy of inclusion or whether I was biased because of the huge impact it had on my own life. When I think of the soundtracks that influenced my musical taste, nothing ranks as high as Easy Rider, featuring as it does Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, The Byrds, The Band, etc, as well as the iconic lead trick, Steppenwolf's Born To Be Wild. Watching it in my late teens was mindblowing. Yet putting an objective hat on, it's also clear to see that no film captured the hippie culture of west coast America in the late 60s like Easy Rider, and for that alone its cultural and cinematic heritage is assured.
Directed by Dennis Hopper, Easy Rider was conceived by Hopper, Peter Fonda and Terry Southern. The idea for the film emerged from Fonda's desire to debunk the traditional Western film mythos and to explore the real America of the late 60s, one that was undergoing significant social and cultural shifts. Another key figure was Bert Schneider, a revolutionary producer in the emerging New Hollywood, who told Hopper he'd give him some money to go out and shoot some of the film (initially called The Loners) in New Orleans on 16mm film and, if he liked the results, then he would fund the film.
Peter Biskind's book (and documentary), Easy Riders Raging Bulls, is a great resource on how the New Hollywood evolved, born out out of a love for European cinemas amid the ruins of the old Hollywood studio system, which had lost its middle-age audience to TV. Fonda and Hopper, who were disenchanted with mainstream Hollywood, decided to create a low-budget, independent film that could depict the changing social landscape. Terry Southern, a well-known satirist, contributed to the screenwriting, infusing the film with his biting commentary about America.
Easy Rider is a road movie on choppers, with the plot following the story of Wyatt (played by Fonda) and Billy (played by Hopper), who together embark on a journey across America on the back of the proceeds of a successful cocaine deal. The two characters, often interpreted as modern cowboys, journey through various landscapes – both physical and metaphorical. They encounter a variety of characters, including a hippie commune, a small-town lawyer (played by Jack Nicholson in a breakout role) and hostile locals. The film explores themes of personal freedom, societal norms, disillusionment and the counterculture movement. However, the film's tragic ending is a cold reminder of the intolerance and violence that was prevalent in America at the time.
An important mention must go to cinematographer László Kovács, who shot Easy Rider over 12 weeks on the road, and then carefully edited the film using jump cuts and choppy transitions to try and recreate the sense of a psychedelic trip. Kovács himself said: “We had the motorcycles in one truck and all the camera and lighting gear in another. There was no room for a dolly. My camera car was a Chevy convertible with a plywood platform. The film looks spontaneous, but don’t let that fool you. We rehearsed and staged every scene, and I lit to establish the mood and setting.”
Easy Rider marked a turning point for independent cinema, becoming a box-office success despite its low budget, with its popularity built instead on word-of-mouth promotion. Young audiences dug how Hopper rejected traditional narrative structures and employed a more fragmented, episodic approach, reflecting the disjointed reality of the counterculture movement. Hopper also cleverly chose the music in the film so that it chimed with events on screen, adding depth to the storytelling, while he also portrayed drug taking, specifically marijuana and LSD and their effects, in a realistic way on screen for the first time. As a result, Easy Rider was a major influence on the New Hollywood movement of the 1970s, which saw a wave of young, innovative filmmakers emerge to challenge traditional film conventions.
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