1969 was a tumultuous time to be an American. With news pouring in from overseas of American casualties fighting in the Vietcong, and political upheaval bursting at the seams of a nation the public needed cinema now more than ever. It was a great year for the box office. There was no shortage of cinematic gold, with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Midnight Rider beating it in 1st and 2nd. Easy Rider became the third highest grossing movie of the year. Freedom is what this amazing film written by Peter Fonda aims for, two modern explorers set out on a journey for just that.
They have the life on the road, of the wind, for the heart. Blazing trails not only on the pavement but also through the sales box at the theaters and in to the hearts of many who recognized the struggles Wyatt and Billy. Easy Rider was “ the” statement of a generation when it was released in the summer of 1969. And it was a critical statement about America. It remains one of the most significant films of the decade in that it was such a new kind of American film.
Easy Rider, the film equivalent of Jack Kerouac’s rambunctious On the Road novel, legitimatized new subject matter, including casual drugs and sex, and the questioning of the American system. At the time, Dennis Hopper’s film received a far-reaching reaction from fans and critics alike. Vincent Canby once wrote that Easy Rider was “… not a great film, but an accurate if overstated dramatization of the fears of many people, especially young people, who were shocked to realize that perhaps there were flaws in the system. ” A statement which still holds true today, as a new generation witnesses a whole new set of problems facing their country.
Easy Rider has been influential in not only the reinforcement of counterculture hippiedom, but also as a catalyst for political agenda as George Bush stated. Bush stated “ We [the Reagan administration] have turned around the permissive philosophy of the 1970s, which made it easy to slip into a life of drug abuse and crime. ” In Bush’s view, Clint Eastwood’s “ Go ahead, make my day” had replaced sentiments such as Jack Nicholson’s “ This used to be a helluva country – I can’t understand what’s gone wrong with it” from Easy Rider, as the very heartbeat of America.
Jeremy Larmer complained at the time of Bush’s speech that “ Neither film has much to do with what America ever was really like, but they – like the fabricated man who so confidently cites them – are part of the image-mongering culture that makes a reality of its own that is all but inescapable. ” Did Easy Rider create a celluloid America of its own from which there was no escape, or was the film legitimized by its ambiguity towards a transcendent era.
The low-budget tale of two bikers on an ultimately tragic cross-country odyssey after scoring a big cocaine sale, “ Easy Rider” became a generational touchstone. “ We rode the highways of America and changed the way movies were made in Hollywood,” Fonda said in a statement. “ I was blessed by his [Hoppers] passion and friendship. “ The movie, which boasted a star-making performance from a little-known Jack Nicholson as a boozy small-town lawyer who goes along for the ride and gets his first taste of marijuana, set old-guard Hollywood back on its heels.
The impact of ‘ Easy Rider,’ both on the filmmakers and the industry as a whole, was no less than seismic,” Peter Biskind wrote in his 1998 book “ Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-And-Rock ‘ n’ Roll Generation Saved Hollywood. ” And yet this piece of great American cinema did not win any acclaimed awards. Hopper received the First Film Award (Prix de la premiere ? uvre) at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival. At the Academy Awards, Jack Nicholson was nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, and the film was also nominated for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Material Not Previously Published or Produced.