Den of the Cyphered Wolf

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Movie Review: Easy Rider


Okay so for the last few days I've been going through my list of movies I'm ashamed I haven't seen so get your motors running. There are so many reasons why I should have watched Easy Rider. It's both the quintessential hippie movie and the quintessential New Hollywood movie and as a movie guy I am ashamed that I haven't seen it.

One of the reasons why I never did is  because beyond telling me that I should watch it nobody could tell me why. And that makes complete sense. The movie has basically no plot being mostly an excuse for Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper to go to different places and opine the loss of the american dream, wherein a person could live their life as they saw fit as long as doing so didn't hurt anybody.

And that is the point of the movie. Watching two guys who are a little unconventional but who are otherwise good people continually get a raw deal because of the prejudices of society.

What makes the film interesting is that it's a movie about hippies that doesn't, at least it doesn't seem to be trying, to either use the notion of the hippie as a cheap way to ingratiate itself on the then just petering out youth movement, condemn or mourn the movement. It is a hippie movie not a documentary. It tries to make a case for what the leftist anti-establishment sentiment was about.

And just in case you didn't get it the ending, which I won't spoil, really hits the point home.

Apart from that the soundtrack was amazing. They licensed some of the defining music of the era before it became known as the defining music of the era further pushing it to be THE hippie movie.



All that being said. There is no plot. It's more of a series of episodes. Two guys are trying to get to Mardi Gras and stuff happens. This is not a narrative. There is no arc. It's all constructed so Peter Fonda can preach, but hey I'm in his choir.

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