Late 60's America gave us plenty of thrilling music (Hendrix, The Doors, Love) and a good number of goofy, psychedelic freak flicks (The Trip, Head, Wild In The Streets). But Easy Rider was something different. On the surface we have a somewhat trite premise - two 'freaks', Billy, and Captain Wyatt America (Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda), move a stash of coke from LA to New Orleans on two very splendid choppers and live the hippy dream along the way. It's a drugs and bikes and chicks and camping movie, undeniably. But scratch that surface and we're soon wrestling with doubt, disillusionment, moral dilemma and the unraveling of the very alternative lifestyle on which the movie is based.
Indeed, the contradictions are right there in the set up. This duo of dudes (and there's a cracking scene where the term 'dude' has to be explained to a surprisingly square Jack Nicholson) are setting out not to find themselves or their country, but to get filthy rich selling a drug which was to become more associated with Wall Street dealers than pot pushers. They don't want to change the world, just make a ton of cash - a hippy retirement plan, if you like.
Hopper, the most obvious 'freak' in appearance, intentionally displays a disregard for his fellow man throughout - little love and peace, plenty of shove and fleece. But as the road trip progresses, it's Fonda's Wyatt who starts to question the entire escapade. When the two of them take a break at a fledgling commune, Captain America immediately embraces the idealism, while Billy is dismayed, embarrassed and ultimately rejected. He simply can't walk the walk and sees the counter culture as what it ultimately became - an excuse to get stoned, get laid and get away with it.
Many of the 'head' movies mentioned above, attempt to recreate the LSD experience with some primitive prism lenses, and phasing blues guitar. But the trip in Easy Rider is set in a graveyard, soundtracked by a gothic choir and is genuinely disturbing. We're actually quite pleased to be sober and straight and not sobbing into the bosom of a statue like Fonda. The acid fuelled sex is far from 'free love' - there's more than a suggestion that the girls are hookers hired by Billy. We are not being sold the dream of a never ending party, more a glimpse of an anarchic nightmare from which no good can come.
Interestingly, with Hopper directing, one feels he has already seen through the beguiling facade of the beautiful people and 'flowers in your hair' emptiness, long before the Pistols warned us to 'never trust a hippy'. And he chillingly draws our attention to the fine line between amorality and immorality as Billy and Wyatt effectively lead Nicholson's George to his death at the hands of bat swinging rednecks, simply raiding his wallet as he lies still warm. There's something rotten in this journey and the corruption drives deeper the further south the bikes advance.
By the final reel, there's a spiritual battle raging. Billy picked his side from the start and therefore is untroubled by the 'bad vibes', so the war rages in the heart of Fonda. It's no coincidence his character is nicknamed America and his leathers sport the stars and stripes. He's as much caught up in conflicting loyalties and polarised principles as the land on which he rides - with one foot in the fields of Vietnam and the other in the fields of Yasgur's farm as it hosts the Woodstock festival.
The pair are ultimately separated not by the bleak ending - which I won't spoil for you - but by their comments at the final camp.
'We made it!' crows the jubilant Billy. 'We blew it' counters the despondent Wyatt, 'Goodnight'.
Of course, there's some tremendous music layered over the whole saga and ground-breaking
photography (witness the painfully slow pan at prayers in the commune) but what lifts this movie above its 'weed and weirdness' cousins is the way it picks apart the sixties revolution at the same time as celebrating and documenting it.
