Sure, Wyatt and Billy drop acid and smoke a lot of weed. They run counter not only to Richard Nixon’s law-and-order America but to the counterculture itself. The shaggy bikers aren’t really villains or heroes. The actors don’t say much, and the scenes often unfold with casual, documentary-like pacing. Even after heavy editing cut more than four hours of Hopper’s first version of the film to a relatively concise 95 minutes, it can feel long and meandering.
#EASY RIDER SOUNDTRACK SONGS MOVIE#
They score wads of cash in a drug deal and then head out to Mardi Gras in New Orleans because why not? (Side note: The fat-cat drug-buyer is played by Phil Spector, the wall-of-sound producer who made all those teen symphonies such as the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby” and the Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” in the early ‘60s.) Along the way, the bikers mingle with everyone from free-love hippies at a commune to rednecks in a diner, but they prefer to keep moving.įonda initially financed much of the movie himself and Hopper directed, bypassing the corporate Hollywood studios that likely wouldn’t have green-lighted such an ill-defined project anyway. Astutely chosen songs by Jimi Hendrix, the Byrds, Steppenwolf and other notables ride shotgun with Billy and Wyatt. In lieu of dialogue by the taciturn protagonists, its rock soundtrack narrated the journey. Loosely conceived as a contemporary Western, with Dennis Hopper (Billy) and Peter Fonda (Wyatt) as the ’60s answer to Billy the Kid and Wyatt Earp, “Easy Rider” was essentially an unscripted road movie. Subtext aside, “Easy Rider” can come off as a bit haphazard, a wooly period piece about a generation in a wilderness of possibility and violence.
#EASY RIDER SOUNDTRACK SONGS FREE#
Wander off into the margins of the mainstream, it suggests, and the Land of the Free will turn on you. “Easy Rider” resonates across generations because it’s in essence not so much a period piece or even a protest, but a deeper look into the disconnect between what America believes itself to be and what it actually is. And, no, it had nothing to do with “flower power” or “summer of love” bromides. It mirrored how young America saw itself. Yet the movie felt more of its moment than anything Hollywood was manufacturing at the time. The plot? Two guys ride through the American South in search of whatever lurks over the horizon.
0 kommentar(er)
