Easy Rider: An Epic journey into the unknown
For the American dream
Easy Rider is the late 1960s "road film" tale of a search for freedom (or the illusion of freedom) and an identity in America, in the midst of paranoia, bigotry and violence. The story, of filmmakers' Fonda/Hopper creation, centers around the self-styled, counter-cultured, neo-frontiersmen of the painfully fashionable late 60s. As for the meaning of Easy rider, Peter Fonda (Wyatt) said in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, ¡§it is a southern term for a whore¡¦s old man, not a pimp, but a dude who lives with a chick. Because he¡¦s got the easy ride. Well, that¡¦s what¡¦s happened to America, man. Liberty¡¦s become a whore, and we¡¦re all taking an easy ride¡¨ . However, their journey is far from an easy ride; it is a unsettling, frightening and revealing experience rounded up in self-destruction.
Introduction to Easy Rider (1969)
Easy Rider is a counter-cultural, experimental, independent film for the alternative youth/cult market, with sex, drugs, casual violence, reflecting the collapse of the idealistic 60s.
The film does not have a clear plot, and its artistic merit is also doubtful, as a film critic Peter Biskind said, ¡§It had little background or historical development of characters, a lack of typical heroes, uneven pacing, jump cuts and flash-forward transitions between scenes, an improvisational style and mood of acting and dialogue, background rock 'n' roll music to complement the narrative, and the equation of motorbikes with freedom on the road rather than with delinquent behaviors.¡¨
However, it presents an image of the popular and historical culture of the time and a story of a contemporary but destructive journey by two self-righteous, drug-fueled, anti-hero bikers eastward through the American Southwest.
Their trip to Mardi Gras in New Orleans takes them through limitless, untouched landscapes including Monument Valley, various towns, a hippie commune, and a graveyard. However, they inevitably encountered local residents who are narrow-minded and hateful of their long-haired freedom and use of drugs.
Extremely successful and low-budget, this film has won the 1969 Cannes Film Festival¡¦s award for the Best Film by a new director. The film also received two Academy Award nominations: Best Original Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor for Jack Nicholson in ...
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...ay¡¨, but instead of peace and enlightenment, they experienced confusion and disillusion. At the end of the movie, the two protagonists experience hallucinatory emotions, where we can see intense colors, kaleidoscopic swirls, and distorted shapes and forms. They search for enlightenment, while inveighing agsint civilization¡¦s hypocrisy and brutality. Their rootless, drifting pursuit of the American dream and the promise of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll has been questionably successful, dissatisfying, transitory and elusive. Wyatt believes there may have been another less destructive, less diversionary, more spiritually fulfilling way to search for their freedom rather than selling hard drugs, taking to the road and being sidetracked, and wasting their lives. ƒÞ
For all its counter cultural reflections, the movie does not portray the youthful movement uncritically, rather it provides an ambiguous ending, implying that excesses, even counter cultural ones, can be harmful and destructive. David Hopper also defines this film as anti-counter cultural. The romance and dream of the American highway is turned menacing and deadly¡XThey looked for America but couldn¡¦t find it anywhere.
The movie depicts what it was like to be Australian in the decades of the 50’s and 60’s and the decisions of the Australian government over this period, through the journey of four Aboriginal women and one Irish man. The movie explores the treatment of indigenous people living in this era in comparison to white Australians. The unique ways in which the characters made their living provided for scrutiny, judgement and vulnerability. In the movie you see just how differently the Aboriginal community was treated compared to the white Australians during these era’s.
John Ford’s classic American Western film, Stagecoach (1939) shows many examples of political life and social behavior during it’s time. The plot is about nine travelers onboard a stagecoach from Tonto, Arizona to Lordsburg, New Mexico Territory. In the beginning, the passengers of the Stagecoach are unfamiliar with each other. However, their relationships grow as they get to know each other during their journey. Each character claims a different social position.
In “The Thematic Paradigm,” Robert Ray explains how there are two vastly different heroes: the outlaw hero and the official hero. The official hero has common values and traditional beliefs. The outlaw hero has a clear view of right and wrong but unlike the official hero, works above the law. Ray explains how the role of an outlaw hero has many traits. The morals of these heroes can be compared clearly. Films that contain official heroes and outlaw heroes are effective because they promise viewer’s strength, power, intelligence, and authority whether you are above the law or below it.
...ther they express the realistic conflict there is between the two. Outwardly, the characters conform, but, inwardly, they long to be free. In real life, most people do not sway to a definite side or another on the issue of conformity and rebellion, but rather, as these characters do, experience a complex inward struggle and conflict with the ideas.
Robert B. Ray categorizes Casablanca as "the most typical" American film. Ray uses Casablanca as a tutor text for what he calls the formal paradigm of Classical Hollywood as well as the thematic paradigm that addresses the conflict between isolationism and communitarian participation. The film is typical in its appropriation of an official hero Laszlo, who stands for the civilizing values of home and community, and an outlaw hero Rick, who stands for individu...
There are many symbols of freedom and individuality in Dennis Hoppers movie Easy Rider. The movie Easy Rider revolves around two bikers, Wyatt and Billy, making a trip from Los Angeles to New Orleans, to attend Mardi Gras. The first scene in the movie involves the two protagonists selling a large amount of cocaine to a gentleman in a Rolls Royce. After the drug deal two the bikers begin their journey to Mardi Gras, but not before Wyatt removes his watch and throws it on the ground. This action is shows Wyatt’s pursuit of freedom, because time serves only to constrain them. Once on the road you learn that their names are Wyatt and Billy, a reference to Wyatt Earp and Billy the Kid who are considered American legends, as well as outlaws. Wyatt rides a chopper with the stars and stripes on the gas tank and on his helmet while sporting the now cliché leather jacket. Billy is dressed up like a cowboy; he is wearing all tan leather with a wide brim hat. Also throughout the movie Billy refers to Wyatt as Captain America. All of these things serve to ingrain the belief that they embody the American dream which is to earn enough money to pursue your dream. It just so happens that their dream is freedom, the same belief that led to the creation of the United States.
...ile the 1950’s aspect of the film forms a sense of nostalgia for the past. This nostalgia is consistent with Reagan’s 1980s political outlook. Reagan had a 1950s conservative rhetoric, as he promoted gender roles and traditional values. However, 1950s Lorraine rebels against these ideals by being assertive, smoking, and drinking. People of that time rebelled against Reaganite politics by referring to the rebelliousness parts of 1980s teen movies. Thus producing a visualization of American rebelliousness challenging authority and power. Overall, the movie prefers to promote newness and youngness. For example, the school dance is a critical part of the movie where Marty has to make his parent fall in love. Americans prefer to collaborate themselves with those ideas. The movie demonstrates America as a place of renewal by putting teen culture right in the spotlight.
[1] The silent film, With Daniel Boone Thru the Wilderness, was produced in 1926: a time of prosperity, an era without the skepticism of the modern American mind. People were not yet questioning the stories and histories they had been taught as children. The entertaining story told in this Robert North Bradbury film is loosely based on the life of an American hero. However, the presence of several insidiously inaccurate historical representations demonstrates how an entertaining film might not be as innocent as it initially seems. This film fails to question certain key issues concerning the Daniel Boone legend. In fact, it does quite the opposite. The creators of this film wholeheartedly bought into the many warped myths and distorted “facts” surrounding the story of Daniel Boone. Amazingly, the ethnocentric (read racist and colonial) ideals found in 19th century whites apparently still existed in 1926, and, to a certain extent, still do today. This essay will explore the factors that contributed to the twisted representations found in With Daniel Boone Thru the Wilderness. Hopefully, the work of this essay and many others like it will help the next generation of Americans (and filmmakers) to avoid the same injustices and societal pitfalls that have plagued mankind for ages.
...allowed to reach her American Dream without being frowned upon by others. Materialism, and the fears of judgment, are restrictions for these characters that keep them from reaching their true happiness and American Dreams.
This movie is a wonderful production starting from 1960 and ending in 1969 covering all the different things that occurred during this unbelievable decade. The movie takes place in many different areas starring two main families; a very suburban, white family who were excepting of blacks, and a very positive black family trying to push black rights in Mississippi. The movie portrayed many historical events while also including the families and how the two were intertwined. These families were very different, yet so much alike, they both portrayed what to me the whole ‘message’ of the movie was. Although everyone was so different they all faced such drastic decisions and issues that affected everyone in so many different ways. It wasn’t like one person’s pain was easier to handle than another is that’s like saying Vietnam was harder on those men than on the men that stood for black rights or vice versa, everyone faced these equally hard issues. So it seemed everyone was very emotionally involved. In fact our whole country was very involved in president elections and campaigns against the war, it seemed everyone really cared.
Although there were many concepts that were present within the movie, I choose to focus on two that I thought to be most important. The first is the realistic conflict theory. Our textbook defines this as, “the view that prejudice...
The West Side Story portrays the lives of two different gangs living in America, as well as their beliefs and examples of living a good life. The expectations of what people consider the good life to be may vary on a person’s morals and their dreams of what life is truly about. In this movie, whether or not these characters were good people, lived a good life, or lived in a good society is a very controversial topic.
...ing his life for what he believes in, it will instigate a new wave of Irish Identity that would encourage people to continue fighting for the betterment of Ireland. The film doesn’t seem to intentionally stir political debate or instigate further cross-national dispute, but instead, have audiences realize and understand what happened, accept it as history, and appreciate the powerful story of a man who willingly died for his beliefs.
... is the brutality of hate and racism. The emotions running high in the movie makes it powerful and moving and the death of Derek’s younger brother Danny Vinyard is shocking enough to bring tears to many viewers’ eyes. The movie ends with Danny’s voice reading his paper out loud and he ends his paper with a very important quote by Abraham Lincoln. This quote shows how Danny’s, as well as Derek’s, mindset changed from the beginning of the movie to the end. When hearing this quote it leaves the viewers in awe that Danny finally started to look past his hateful ideologies but ends up dead because of the lifestyle him and his brother decided to lead. “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained we must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be by the better angels of our nature”.
For a start, the basic plot of this movie is pretty much the same as every other family film to be released this decade; the unlikely hero, believe in yourself, follow your dreams, etc, etc.