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Back to the Feature: Five Easy Pieces (1970)


Five Easy Pieces is a movie that I don’t think has retained quite the power it had in 1970. It was one of those big hits of the early Hollywood New Wave, on the heels of films like The Graduate, Bonnie and Clyde, and Easy Rider. I knew it as the movie that broke Jack Nicholson through in the industry as a star, that has that scene with him playing a piano on the back of a pickup truck, but it certainly hasn’t stuck in the mainstream the way either those previous examples have or Nicholson’s subsequent films like Chinatown and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Watching it, I can definitely see why, its’ drama is a lot more subdued than those, a lot less flashy. Story-wise it isn’t even something that would be out of place in a modern Oscars line-up. For the time as I understand it though, it was this great symbol of American alienation as it depicted a man straddling two very different worlds, and not much at home in either of them. I can appreciate that and on some level I don’t think that’s a theme that has lost much potency, but the movie is pretty dismal in ways it doesn’t intend, and the poignancy of its’ philosophy hasn’t aged terribly well.
Maybe this is because its’ protagonist Bobby Dupea (Nicholson) is both an asshole and not a very compelling one. Don’t get me wrong, his story is really interesting. He’s a piano prodigy from an upper-class stock of Washingtonites who left that all behind for some reason never fully explored to become a blue collar oil rig worker in rural California. That’s a curious premise but it doesn’t seem to be the thing that director Bob Rafelson is all that interested by beyond merely its’ contradiction. Certainly they don’t care for Bobby grappling with it. In the meantime, his personality takes centre stage, one that is in some ways definitive of Nicholson’s well-known screen persona, in other ways of a general dickishness it sees in the kind of identity he has crafted for himself. He’s pretty belligerent, obnoxious, violent, and crass, and has a seeming disdain for everyone and everything -much the films’ point, but he’s not humane enough to warrant sympathy in this, which is where I think the films’ datedness effects its’ quality today. No longer is Bobby reminiscent of the common man, his listless existence not relevant anymore, at least in the way its’ played out here almost pseudo-romantically a la Easy Rider.
Any virtue in his actions and behaviour doesn’t stick like it once did, drowned out by how it effects others. There’s the somewhat famous scene in the diner where he pushes for an order that can’t be accommodated, arguing with sarcasm and condescension how it could easily be managed before making a violent scene and storming out. Then, this was received as a triumphant moment, a man logically bringing down an arbitrary ruling demonstrative of a corroded system -now, it reads more as just a stubborn man harassing a waitress with threatening connotations. It’s the case of many a “righteous rebel” character from the 70s and 80s. Most egregious though, and even for that time is his treatment of his girlfriend Rayette, played by a terrific Karen Black -a woman whom he gaslights, cheats on, verbally abuses, and has not an ounce of sincere affection for. She’s convenient for him is all and he doesn’t give a second thought to abandoning her three whole times over the course of the film. The first is averted by her, pregnant with his child and mentally distraught, threatening suicide if he leaves for Washington without her, the second is under the guise of compassion and emotion, and the third is final -as he hitches a ride at a gas station without telling her, eager to have her out of his life. The movie doesn’t much care about Rayette any more than Bobby, it gives her little attention except where she serves to foil him, to be a symbol of the blue collar existence he’s made down in California. The one time he comes to her defence late in the film, when she at his family’s home is slyly criticized by a snooty relation, it’s not her he’s standing up for so much as the way of life she represents that he has been living. By abandoning her at the end it means he’s leaving behind that life. In reducing her to a narrative tool though, she is deprived of agency, character, humanity -her country singing ambitions never amount to more than a joke. Often she seems almost defined as a caricature of a rural working-class “redneck” woman, which makes easier the films’ and Bobby’s proclivity to treat her like dirt. And it’s not something that can be so easily ignored now, or justified as in service of some greater theme.
At the same time I can respect how that theme touched something in a lot of people back in 1970, especially young boomers at an uncertain point in American history. And though it’s not so cogent now, it is still revealing. Bobby is a man without any sense of responsibility, no accountability, drifting through life without a clear purpose. He is jaded with the lifestyle he was bred into and so has adopted a new one, complete with a new identity and perspective. But he can’t shake that old world as easily as he would like, he still seems capable of switching gears easily. When he comes to Rayette in distinguished attire and when he speaks without the customary gruffness, there is the hint of another person there -whom he has been trying to avoid being. Nicholson is good at that, it sticks out to me more than his wildness does. These conflicting identities, though they remain subtext, are the most interesting facet of the character, the only interesting facet of the character even, as there’s little to go off of as to why he’s a fugitive from all that, the upper crust expectations and the piano brilliance. Whatever it is, he’s very unwilling to confront it, Bobby DuPea runs away from his problems –literally doing so with no plan at the end of the movie. The disillusionment he channels, how Rafelson presents this largely without criticism, speaks really intently to where the U.S. was at that moment in time, specifically those folks of Bobby’s generation feeling lost and adrift from the wider establishment. They couldn’t fit into easy boxes and so sought to excise themselves completely. That of course comes with a lot of directionless frustration in addition to the more jovial hooliganism expressed by Bobby in the early parts of the film. He is a kind of vessel of all that very real unease and visceral disconnect; and in some ways he is a charismatic figure to see oneself in, Nicholson was a brand new entity in Hollywood of a kind not seen before. This was a guy a lot of young white men could emulate –I suspect he was designed that way.
To be fair though, the character’s worst traits aren’t entirely uncommented upon, and I attribute that to the films’ female screenwriter Carole Eastman (though written under the male pen name Adrien Joyce). Rayette may not be well served by the story but she does get a few moments to disparage Bobby his attitude towards her –it has little effect on him, but it shows a consciousness to how terrible Bobby is to her with no justification. These tend to be Black’s best scenes too. Bobby’s sister Partita (Lois Smith) is treated with a fair bit of humanity as well, as much as the film codes her as being part of that stuck-up elite. Most effective though is Bobby’s sister-in-law Catherine (Susan Anspach), who challenges him all through his stay at the family home –she might be the only person to whom Bobby has any kind of real attachment. They have an affair of course, but she spurns him in the end, rightly determining he cannot love someone if he doesn’t even love himself or anything. It’s a sorry thing it doesn’t much register for him.
Additionally, there are a few other women who appear in contrast to Bobby and the film’s overall attitude. Sally Ann Struthers plays a woman Bobby philanders with early on who, during a drunken night with Bobby and friends, tells a seemingly innocuous story from childhood about her mothers’ explanation for her dimples, but that also hints a touch at her own disappointment or depression in life. More compelling are a pair of hitchhikers Bobby and Rayette pick up played by Helena Kallianiotes and Toni Basil (of “Mickey” fame) –anti-consumerist ideologues and possible lovers on their way to Alaska because it is “clean”. They stick with the trip for a little while, and though they are somewhat thin avatars, their far more purposeful alienation is in stark relief to Bobby’s aimless one. They too would be far more interesting people to follow and it was a disappointment when they got off and the film kept going with Bobby.
Five Easy Pieces is a nicely made film, Rafelson is not a poor director and captures some enticing imagery. The only moment to come close to equaling Bobby playing the piano on a truck is a scene overlooking some wilderness near the end between Bobby and his father –also one of the only moments he seems to get in touch with real emotion as he seeks some direction or solace in the unresponsive elder. There are plenty of seeds of good things in this movie, but just a few of them sprout. It stands as a time capsule of a period and a general feeling that is itself intriguing to analyze and interrogate, but it doesn’t offer a whole lot beyond that sadly.

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