Easy Rider (1 Viewer)

blaster

blaster

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Just saw this cult movie last night. Best that I can make out is that its a road movie with two bikers on choppers, who go to New Orleans for the Mardi Gras festival, smokes joint, and eventually gets gunned down. Very interesting sound track on rock music, however, too many and some were chopped off.

I seem to be missing out on the point of this movie, which I am sure some of you ex-hippies would be able to enlighten me...:)

Rgds Victor
 
Victor,

With all due respect, you had to be from that time to really get it. If you don't, that's a shame but as we used to say, "hey, man, that's your trip."

Brad
 
I might be wrong but did one of the muppet movies very subtley parody the pot smoking scene. The bus broke down and the muppets sat around a fire ... or did I dream it?
 
Time and place, time and place. Easy Rider was the ultimate time and place experience. It was a really heavy scene, man, and you can feel The Weight. And don't bogart that joint, dude. Help me! I'm caught in a flashback! :wink2:^&grin -- Al
 
Brad (jazzeum) is correct. You had to have been an adult when the movie came out, and have been exposed to the society of the time. I was born in '64, and I think it's crap, wouldn't even pause on it, if I were channel-surfing.

Prost!
Brad
 
You don't have to live through a period, to know something about it and to have an opinion about it. Otherwise, we couldn't follow our passions in our chosen hobby, for example. Conversely, having direct personal experience of a time could prejudice one to a particular viewpoint about that era. I think there were a lot of foolish and even dangerous ideas that gained currency in those years. At a high level of detail, I think it's accurate to say that the Baby Boomers rejected the accumulated wisdom of all preceding generations--best expressed in the exhortation, "Don't trust anyone over 30". That is a radical shift in human experience, possibly the most foolish, and therefore, dangerous.

Upshot is, I think "Easy Rider" is a dumb movie. Notorious, and a classic among Boomers because of it, but that doesn't make it good.

Prost!
Brad
 
You may think you understand but you don't but even if you had been born in the era, I still don't think you'd get it. You're not the kind of person who the movie was directed at and that's ok. Not every movie appeals to everybody.

Peace, brother.
 
being that i am from New orleans, still there, and that yesterday WAS Mardi Gras...i must say that times have changed so much that you learn to hate the two "heroes" of this movie and actually applaud the rednecks in the truck at the end. Those type of guys come into town and ruin things because they think that they do not have to answer to anybody on that day and do anything they want. Mardi Gras can be a great deal of fun for families, but it is always oustiders who come there with money just enough for alcohol and drugs, get wasted, cause the locals a lot of grief and disgust with their actions. They are the gutter punks and (some) college kids of today. no manners, rude as hell and dont care who they intimidate or scare (at least Hopper's charcter was that way) and Fonda's character pays for it in the end. They never learn that the Police here expect the worst in mankind and react accordingly. Do what the nice policeman says, no matter what, and all will be well.
 
Not an ex-hippie, always a Republican, but the film is about two guys, the open road, and the money they have stored in Captain America's fuel tank. This was supposed to have them on "Easy Street", so they hit the road to see America. The only problem is that the 60's era "counter-culture" which was so openly embraced by those on the Left coast and the Right coast, wasn't so embraced in "middle America" where they met with their demise.
They sampled all that was going on at the time: LSD trip in New Orleans with a famous future MTV star, some group love at a commune, some dope smoking with Jack Nicholson while they discuss life on other planets. Until they hit a place where their type of "freedom" is neither embraced, or understood.
So, they meet their demise, and all that cash in Captain America's fuel tank goes up in smoke, just like their dreams.
Peter Fonda says it best: "We blew it, we blew it man."
They had tried not to be what they hated: "the establishment", but wound up selling cocaine for the money that would set them free. Just like what "the establishment" does.
They became what violated them.
It's about a 5 on my scale of one to ten. Jack Nicholson stole the film. His best line: "I got enough problem with the booze, I don't wanna get hooked on that stuff".
 
I saw it when it came out and rented it for my daughter. We had been to the site of the Woodstock festival in Bethel, NY back in 2012 and she wanted to see films about the 1960s.

When I saw it the first time in 69, I thought that this was a fantasy or something happening far away from my experience. ...except for the nude co-ed swimming and pot smoking which we did do at the local quarries. Since I had seen the Civil Rights movement going on on TV a few years earlier I could believe that the guys got killed like that in the South. We did get Jack Nicholson out of that film. Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda weren't huge stars but had or have steady careers. Karen Black was in there with Toni Basil ( Oh Mickey!) the choreographer.


Watching it again with my daughter I could see that it was dated. Most films made in any era about the era don't survive but this one is a "period piece" to refer to. The music is still good.
I guess those that lived the 60s and didn't get it, I suggest The Green Berets. That's a fantasy film to. :wink2:
 
About the only good thing about the Green Berets was Sgt. Barry Sandler's song.
 
George Takei was just on the BBC, talking about his new musical on Japanese internment in the US during WWII.

I have enjoyed all your inputs here, including the Doors videos. I can see that there are some hippies among the respondents. The movie is not for me, although I watched it out of curiosity. I do appreciate the music from that era, some of it anyway.

Rgds Victor
 
blaster said:
George Takei was just on the BBC, talking about his new musical on Japanese internment in the US during WWII.

I have enjoyed all your inputs here, including the Doors videos. I can see that there are some hippies among the respondents. The movie is not for me, although I watched it out of curiosity. I do appreciate the music from that era, some of it anyway.

Rgds Victor
Click to expand...

Different strokes for different folks as they say Victor. Do you have TCM in Singapore? Some excellent movies on there. I just saw Last Picture Show. Excellent.

Brad
 
blaster said:
George Takei was just on the BBC, talking about his new musical on Japanese internment in the US during WWII.

I have enjoyed all your inputs here, including the Doors videos. I can see that there are some hippies among the respondents. The movie is not for me, although I watched it out of curiosity. I do appreciate the music from that era, some of it anyway.

Rgds Victor
Click to expand...

Most of my 1960s 70s "Hippie" friends, relations and acquaintances are now mature parents ( and grand parents) and productive Americans. Most retained concern for social justice and not messing with other people's freedom and happiness. A few are even military vets, war reenactors and toy soldier buffs. Tell me, do you want to reenact Woodstock or Tricia Nixon's wedding? :wink2:


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