10/31/14 (Part One): Better Late Than Never

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31 Days of Halloween, Asia Argento, auteur theory, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Dead Reckoning, Dennis Hopper, Diary of the Dead, dystopian future, Eugene Clark, Fiddlers' Green, Film auteurs, George Romero, horror films, horror franchises, intelligent zombies, John Leguizamo, KNB Effects, Land of the Dead, Maxwell McCabe-Lokos, mercs, Night of the Living Dead, paramilitary groups, rich vs poor, Robert Joy, SImon Baker, social commentary, tanks, The Walking Dead, Tom Savini, writer-director, zombie films

As the wait continued for the follow-up to “Forefather of the Dead” George Romero’s Day of the Dead (1985), longtime fans of his brand of socially-conscious zombie carnage probably weren’t remiss in feeling that this particular ship had already set sail into the sunset. After all, Day of the Dead’s production was notoriously compromised due to financial constraints (Romero’s original plan to continue expanding the world that he created with Dawn of the Dead (1978) was, effectively, shot in the head and downsized to a “handful of survivors in a bunker” storyline after it all proved prohibitively expensive) and Romero appeared to have little success in attracting investors for another entry. For all intents and purposes, it looked like Romero’s zombies had finally stopped kicking, even if his filmmaking career continued to chug along with non-zombie efforts like Monkey Shines (1988), The Dark Half (1993) and Bruiser (2000).

But, to paraphrase another master of the macabre, “over time, even death may die” and Romero’s “Dead” fans finally got their long-delayed wish when Land of the Dead (2005), the official follow-up to Day of the Dead, finally roared into multiplexes. For the first time in 20 years, Romero’s shambling gut-munchers were once again duking it out for box-office dinero, hoping to infect a new generation of horror audiences. Anytime someone waits twenty years for something, however, there’s an inherent danger of irrelevance: after all, there have been twenty years of zombie films between Day and Land. Would Romero still have the goods or would this be another sad example of a master craftsman set adrift, helpless against the ever-changing zeitgeist of our modern era? The answer, as it turns out, would be a hearty “yes,” followed by a quieter, slightly more hesitant “perhaps.”

Radio broadcasts and images of zombie mayhem over the opening credits give us a shorthand version of the events leading up to the “present day,” which appears to reside in a decidedly dystopic near-future: zombies have, effectively, taken over the world, although small bands of survivors still carve out rough existences in the burned-out cities that litter the landscape of what used to be America. The living dead have continued to “evolve,” in a manner of speaking, which we witness first-hand as we see zombies attempting to play instruments, pump gas and carry on rudimentary conversations with each other. One zombie in particular, a large gas station attendant (Eugene Clark), seems to have more intelligence than the average gut-muncher and appears to serve as defacto “leader” to the zombies, organizing them into a more cohesive “army.”

Our plucky protagonist, Riley (Simon Baker), is the leader of a paramilitary group that serves as the last line defense for one of the anonymous, ruined metropoli that jut up from the landscape like scorched bones. Along with the obnoxious, conniving Cholo (John Leguizamo), best friend Charlie (Robert Joy), Mouse (Maxwell McCabe-Lokos) and the rest of the hardened former soldiers, Riley answers to the ultra-slimy Kaufman (Dennis Hopper), lord of the self-sustaining, high-rise paradise known as Fiddler’s Green. Fiddler’s Green, home to the city’s most wealthy and powerful, towers above the slums of the city like an unattainable Eden for the unwashed masses. While the poor and downtrodden carve out existences in a futuristic ghetto that makes Blade Runner (1982) look like Pasadena, the rich and powerful live it up in a combination skyscraper/shopping mall/luxury apartment complex that couldn’t be a more obvious metaphor if it wore a sign saying “Future zombie snacks.” The only thing standing between the 1% and the “walkers” are Riley, his troops and one badass tank known as Dead Reckoning.

While Riley hopes for a modest little piece of land somewhere relatively zombie-free, Cholo has much bigger ambitions: he wants to move into the Green and take his place with the hoity toity elements of society. After he’s doublecrossed by the odious Kaufman, however, Cholo steals Dead Reckoning and aims it right at Paradise: if Kaufman doesn’t pay up what he owes, Cholo will happily mulch the rich and famous with their own firepower…irony, thy name art Romero. Realizing that the only one who can stop Cholo is the guy who trained him, Kaufman enlists Riley and Charlie to return the tank to homebase and deliver the “traitor,” dead or alive. With the assistance of Slack (Asia Argento), a wannabe soldier who Riley rescues from one of the city’s zombie vs human cage matches, the trio are closer than ever to realizing their dream of getting the hell out of the city. All that stands between them is a former comrade, an indestructible weapon of war and a zombie army led by an undead “messiah” named Big Daddy. The stakes? Nothing less than the future of the entire human species.

With a budget almost five times that of Day of the Dead (albeit still “modest” by modern tent-pole standards) and a much bigger scope, it’s tempting to view Land of the Dead as the “proper” follow-up to the landmark Dawn of the Dead. While one could certainly make an argument for this (at the very least, Romero’s desire to fully realize his short-changed vision must have been the genesis for the project), it’s also pretty evident that Land of the Dead presents a natural progression from Day of the Dead, especially when one considers the continued “evolution” of the zombies. Bub may have learned to use a Walkman but the zombies in Land of the Dead can communicate with each other, use basic tools and weapons, strategize (on a basic level) and seem to experience basic human emotions, such as anger, sorrow and pride.

This, of course, has always been one of my main issues with Day of the Dead: the “humanization” of the zombies may dovetail nicely with Romero’s overarching themes of societal collapse and rebirth but it also has the (presumably unintended) effect of removing much of the inherent horror from the living dead: once the zombies start acting more and more like “us,” as it were, they cease to be monsters and begin the journey towards sympathetic characters. While this is still handled rather subtly in Land of the Dead (to a point), the scales tip completely by the time of Diary of the Dead (2007) and it’s pretty obvious that the zombies are now the “victims” while the humans are the “monsters.” While Land of the Dead’s finale is certainly thought-provoking, Riley’s ruminations on the possibility of a shared “promised land” for both human and zombie-kind put us on a much different philosophical plane than the apocalyptic climaxes to either Dawn or Day of the Dead.

None of this, by the way, is to argue for “dumber” zombie films: I’ve always felt that the social politics of Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Dawn of the Dead were one of the main reasons why those films will always be such complete and undeniable classics. There’s a delicate balance to be maintained, however, a balance that Romero appears to grow increasingly uninterested in as the franchise continues: perhaps the desire to make his films more than just “zombie films” fuels this although, to be honest, this is probably just the natural progression of his earlier films, albeit taken a bit far, at least for my personal tastes.

My biggest issue with Land of the Dead, ultimately, is that it ends up being a rather mediocre horror film, despite being an above-average action film. Romero has sacrificed most of the inherent chills and shocks of his first three zombie films in favor of rather repetitious “run and gun” scenes involving Riley’s mercs and the undead: we get treated to what seems an inordinate amount of rather cheap-looking action beats rather than horror setpieces like the inquisitive Hari Krishna or the semi-trailer fiasco from Dawn of the Dead. Land of the Dead is also a much different-looking film than either Dawn or Day: the zombie effects are all handled by KNB, rather than Tom Savini, which actually makes Land of the Dead a bit of a dry-run for the smash-hit TV show The Walking Dead. This is a minor quibble, obviously, since KNB’s designs are nothing to sneeze at, although discerning viewers will still notice the difference (KNB’s zombies are much more “technical” but Savini’s zombies always felt more “real” to me, strangely enough).

The one aspect where Land of the Dead vaults head and shoulders above its immediate predecessor, however, is the caliber of the acting. Quite frankly, Day of the Dead is still one of the most unpleasantly “shouty” films I’ve ever watched: every actor in that thing is pitching to the rafters and, at times, it feels more like a wrestling match than an actual film. Land of the Dead, by contrast, features some absolutely fine performances by the likes of Baker, Argento (Dario’s daughter) and Leguizamo, who I normally find to be excruciating yet who wear the role of Cholo like a spike-knuckled glove. I’ll admit that Robert Joy’s “idiot savant” role stretches credibility just a bit (he’s innocent, like a child, but also a crackshot sniper, like a plot device). Top of the class, however, is Hopper, like always, ruling the roost like some sort of megalomaniacal rooster. He’s predictably great, tossing off lines like “Zombies, man…they creep me out” with the joie de vivre that you expect from cinema’s favorite wild man. Even if everyone else in the movie stunk to high heaven, which they don’t, Hopper is still 1000% more charismatic than every actor in Day of the Dead combined.

Ultimately, Land of the Dead is what it is: a sequel that comes just about 20 years too late. While there’s an awful lot to like here and even some stuff to love (the bits involving the zombies’ fascination with fireworks are, to be honest, quite beautiful), this ends up being a pretty big step-down from Dawn of the Dead, despite being a better film, overall, than Day of the Dead (in my opinion, at least). As mentioned before, this is more of an action film than a horror film, for the most part, but it’s never anything less than watchable and, on occasion, has plenty of that old Romero moxie. This may not be Romero firing on all cylinders (by contrast, The Dark Half is a much, much better film) but I’ll take a “pretty-good” Romero zombie film over pretty much any other horror director’s fare any day of the week. Part of me will never stop wondering what might have happened if this had come a mere 5-10 years after Day of the Dead, however, instead of 20.

 

10/1/14 (Part Two): The Buzz is Back

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1980s films, 31 Days of Halloween, abandoned amusement park, auteur theory, Bill Johnson, Bill Moseley, black comedies, cannibals, Caroline Williams, Chop-Top, cinema, Dennis Hopper, Drayton Sawyer, dysfunctional family, favorite films, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, horror, horror franchises, horror movies, horror-comedies, Jim Siedow, Ken Evert, Leatherface, Lou Perryman, Movies, radio DJs, roadside chili, sequels, Texas, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Texas Ranger, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Tobe Hooper

As a general rule, there are two ways to approach sequels: filmmakers can take the “more of what they liked” approach and…well…give their audiences more of what they liked the first time. On the other hand, sequels can be conceived as continuing segments of an interconnected story (ala Jackson Lord of the Rings trilogy). The problem with the first method is pretty obvious: the more photocopying you do, the worse the reproductions become. If “Film X” was good, more of the same (Film X #2) should (theoretically) be just as good: if Film X #36 is just the same as the previous 35 editions, however, what’s the point? Despite how much you much may have enjoyed a particular film, would you really want to see the same basic movie all over again with minor tweaks? This, of course, becomes a bit of a moot point for anyone who grew up on ’80s slasher films: despite the fact that very few of these films were directly related, almost all of them managed to seem like generic sequels/copies of the others…call it guilt by association.

The flip side to that argument, however, is what I like to call the “Peter Jackson argument”: does every film need to be split into three equal parts? Trilogies have a long history within the film world but how many legitimate sequels are really necessary? Even something like the Hatchet series, which manages to keep a central narrative thread running through all three (at this point) entries begs the ever-important question: how much do we really need to know about a maniacal killer? There’s a tendency to want to do lots of “world building” in modern films, expanding simple ideas into full-blown mythos that rival the likes of anything Lovecraft or King could imagine: the idea behind this seems to be that “one and done” films miss a ton of marketing/box office potential…what good producer wants to be responsible for passing up all those easy ducats?

By taking one look at the above poster-art for Tobe Hooper’s direct sequel, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986), it should be pretty easy to see that neither direction really appealed to the horror auteur. While the original 1974 film was a lean, mean, claustrophobic and ultra-low budget chiller about a group of friends being summarily ground up by a rampaging family of Texas cannibals, the poster for the late-’80s sequel directly references the previous years The Breakfast Club (1985) (Leatherface as Judd Nelson? Talk about inspired casting!). What gives?  A majority of film-goers and horror fans seemed to cry foul at the film, citing its tongue-in-cheek vibe, heavy-duty ’80sisms and dearth of legitimately sweaty scares as reasons to confine the film to the dustbins of history. Is TCM 2 really that bad? Was it the beginning of the end for the fledgling TCM franchise in the same way that the horrendously lame Hellraiser 3 (1992) should have killed off that series? Absolutely not. In fact, at least as far as my humble little opinion goes, I daresay that not only is Hooper’s sequel a fantastic film, in its own right, it’s a more than worthy followup to its iconic forefather. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, naysayers!

My main problem with sequels is the inherent wheelspinning involved: not only do sequels inevitably rehash some of the same setpieces/beats from previous entries but they often, by necessity, need to rehash the same plot points (as audience refreshers, if nothing else). In a way, it’s like a champion mountain climber continuously conquering the same craggy peak: the first time you do it, there’s a genuine sense of accomplishment and wonder. The tenth time you do it, however, it probably feels an awful lot like clocking in for a day at the office. Since the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) was already one of the most notorious, intense and unrelenting films around, how could the filmmakers possibly top it without resorting to completely over-the-top overkill? There is, literally, no way to strip the narrative down any further than the original: the film is already primal enough as it is. Faced with the prospect of making a pale imitation of an accepted classic, however, Hooper took the unexpected turn of making the exact opposite kind of film: rather than stripped-down, drab and serious, Hooper made the follow-up loud, brash, rude, colorful and kind of goofy. More of the same? Not on your life, buddy!

A similar text-crawl to the first film reminds us of the situation behind the original and informs us that the current narrative takes place 12 years later…bringing us, of course, square into the magical ’80s. The action kicks off when a couple of shitty high school guys dick around with the wrong sinister black truck and end up pissing off the Sawyers. As Leatherface (Bill Johnson) is standing atop a moving vehicle, chainsawing one asshat’s head in half, diagonally, the other one is on the phone to a call-in radio show. The soon-to-be ex-douchebags happen to be on the air with DJ Stretch (Caroline Williams) at the time and the intrepid DJ ends up recording the incident. Enter former Texas Ranger Lefty Enright (Dennis Hopper, chewing up scenery and spitting out hot rivets like a Warner Bros. cartoon), who just so happens to be Sally and Franklin Hardesty’s uncle. Sally, we’ll remember, was the original film’s Final Girl and sole survivor, while poor Franklin was the mopey, wheelchair-bound guy who got gutted by a rampaging chainsaw. Seems that Lefty has spent the past 12 years tracking down their killers and, after examining the “accident scene,” has determined that the chainsaw-wielding cannibals are up to their old tricks again. We know that Lefty is right, of course, since we’ve previously gotten a look at a familiar face: Drayton Sawyer (Jim Siedow), the insane cook from the original film, is back as a highly respected member of the local business community and frequent winner of the chili cookoff: “The secret’s in the meat,” he smirks, and we know he ain’t lyin’.

Lefty convinces Stretch to play the tape on the air, despite the protests of her second-in-command/not-in-this-lifetime-suitor L.G. (Lou Perry): Lefty’s plan to draw out the Sawyers is successful, since Stretch ends up with a couple of late-night visitors at the radio station: Leatherface and Chop Top (Bill Moseley). When Lefty is late to protect her, Stretch ends up having to fend off the killers on her own. During their interaction, however, it appears that Leatherface has taken a shine to her…at least, if his grunting, pelvic-thrusting and phallic chainsaw movements are anything to go by. When L.G. returns from a coffee run, he gets unceremoniously pummeled by insane Vietnam vet Chop Top (“Incoming mail!,” he shrieks, splatting L.G.’s noggin into paste in the process) and dragged off to the Sawyer’s secret underground lair (handily located beneath an abandoned amusement park, natch). Like any faithful friend would do, Stretch follows after him, rescue on her mind. For his part, Lefty heads to the amusement park, as well, albeit for a slightly different reason: he’s packing multiple chainsaws and fully intends to smite the heathen Sawyers with a combination of God’s wrath and a little good, old-fashioned extreme bloodshed. As Lefty runs around, sawing support beams in half and attempting to, literally, bring down the house, Stretch must sneak into the proverbial lion’s den and save her friend…or whatever’s left of him. In the process, Stretch will need to become what she struggles against: Hell, truly, hath no fury like a DJ scorned. In the unforgettable words of the original: who will survive…and what will be left of them?

There are a few very important things to keep in mind while watching TCM 2. First of all, the film is just about as different from the first film as possible, despite the fact that both were directed and conceived by Hooper. As mentioned above, the original TCM is almost like a photo-negative of the ultra-colorful sequel. Secondly, the film does function as a direct sequel, even if some of the specifics and timeline events get a little screwy. Drayton, for the most part, is a direct continuation from the first, as is Leatherface (albeit in much more of a “horny teenager” mode here) and Grandpa (Ken Evert). Chop Top, however, is a new construct, although he serves a similar function to Edwin Neal’s hitchhiker in the original. Since Chop Top was never mentioned in the original film, whereas the hitchhiker is never mentioned in the sequel, it’s not much of a stretch to imagine that it’s supposed to be the same fellow (how he survived the Black Maria running over his skull at the climax to the original is a good question, although his metal head plate actually seems to answer this pretty tidily, numerous references to Vietnam notwithstanding). This is all just a long-winded way of saying that TCM 1 and 2 actually fit together pretty well, drastic difference in tone aside. It’s not a perfect fit, mind you, but there’s more of a sense of continuity between these two film than in many more “legitimate” sequel situations.

The third and most important thing to know about TCM 2 is that the film is an absolute blast, almost the complete antithesis to the original’s unrelenting tension. In certain ways, the sequel serves as a sly commentary on the original film: people thought they saw more blood in the original than they did, so Hopper drowned the sequel in outrageously gory setpieces. The original film had a modest, claustrophobic feel, so the sequel feels expansive and expensive. The original was so serious that any attempt at humor felt less like gallow’s humor and more like the rope: the sequel has one goofy setpiece after another (my absolute favorite being the one where Leatherface accidentally chainsaw’s Chop Top’s head, destroying his favorite hairpiece in the process: “You ruined my Sonny Bono wig, you bitch hog!”

Indeed, TCM 2 ends up being a perfect combination of Hooper’s harrowing aesthetic from the first film and the over-the-top atmosphere of most ’80s horror films: everything is blown up to ludicrous proportions here. One of the best examples of this notion in practice is the difference between the Sawyers’ lairs: the farmhouse from the first film will forever stand as a feverish nightmare, while the abandoned amusement park set from the sequel is an eye-popping, Christmas-light-bedecked marvel. For Pete’s sake: TCM 2’s lair features a skeleton riding a bomb, ala Slim Pickens from Dr. Strangelove (1964): it really doesn’t get cooler than that, folks.

Whereas the first film made subtle references to the tide of modernization being responsible for the Sawyers’ situation, the sequel is much more explicit about this. In a film filled with plenty of delicious irony, one of the neatest tidbits is the notion that one of the cities biggest pillars of industry, Drayton Sawyer, is actually the insane head of a secret cannibal family: those damned capitalists! There’s also plenty of rich material evident in things like Chop Top’s plans for his own amusement park (“I’ll call it…NamLand!”) and scenes like the one where Lefty tries to use a disembodied skeleton arm to lift Stretch from a trapdoor, only to have the arm break off at the wrist and send her tumbling down. For all of its sustained carnage, TCM 2 is actually a very funny film.

Which is not, course, to say that it isn’t also 100% a horror film. The opening setpiece, featuring Leatherface riding a moving truck while “wearing” a corpse like a costume, as Oingo Boingo’s “No One Lives Forever,” plays on the soundtrack is a real showstopper, as is the bit where he comes rampaging out of a pitch black room. There’s one scene involving skinning a body that’s more extreme than anything hinted at in the first and Chop Top’s pursuit of Stretch through the compound and up to a hidden aerie is alternately thrilling and nail-biting.

While the film is much more over-the-top than the first, no of the acting manages to seem out-of-place. In particular, Moseley does a career-defining turn as the crazed war vet: the scene where he uses a hanger to scratch the flaking skin on his head, before eating it, is by turns repulsive and awe-inspiring. There’s never a point where Moseley appears to be acting: rather, it seems like they recruited the role from a local loony bin, which is the highest compliment I can pay something attempting to portray “pathologically crazy.”

Truth be told, I unabashedly love The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. It may not have the same sweaty relevance as the original film but it’s exceptionally well-made, features tons of great practical effects, some stellar villains and amazing set-pieces galore. If there are some elements that fall completely flat (Leatherface newfound sexual interest in Stretch is awkward and never explored to any reasonable measure, although it does although Moseley to prance around shouting, “Bubba’s got a girlfriend…Bubba’s got a girlfriend!” at one point), there are countless other elements that hit the bullseye. I can only assume that folks don’t like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 because it’s so tonally different from the first one. In my mind, however, that’s one of the film’s biggest charms: Hooper could have gone “cookie-cutter” but he went outside the mold and I think we’re all the richer for it.

Even though the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise would sputter to a finish with a couple lame sequels and a 2000-era reboot, nothing could ever tarnish the undiluted majesty of the first two films. The original film is and always will be one of my favorite movies: depending on my mood, the second one is, too. If you consider yourself a fan of the first film but have avoided the second like the plague, do yourself a favor: hold your nose, if you have to, but dive right in. I’m more than willing to wager that you’ll come to love it, too, as long as you keep an open mind. Proving that there’s always an exception to the rule, Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is almost as strong, although in completely different ways, from the first film. Besides, how could you possibly pass up a chance to watch Dennis Hopper have a chainsaw duel with Leatherface? The answer, obviously, is that you can’t.

 

3/15/14: Just a Couple Good Old Boys

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actor-director, Altamont, America, American Dream, Best Original Screenplay nominee, Best Supporting Actor nominee, bikers, Billy, Bob Dylan, Born to Be Wild, buddy films, Captain America, Charles Manson, cinema, classic movies, counter-culture films, counterculture, Dennis Hopper, directorial debut, Easy Rider, end of an era, film reviews, films, friendship, hippies, Hoyt Axton, Jack Nicholson, Luke Askew, Mardi Gras, motorcycles, Movies, Oscar nominee, Palme d'Or nominee, Peter Fonda, Phil Spector, rednecks, road movie, road trips, Sharon Tate, Steppenwolf, the American Dream, the Manson Family, The Pusher, Wyatt

When, exactly, did the Summer of Love go up in flames? Conventional wisdom usually points to Altamont, in December 1969, as the point where the promise of free love and hippy Utopianism soured. For my money, though, I always pinpointed Sharon Tate’s murder, on August 9th of the same year, as the real tipping point. Even though the Woodstock festival (usually seen as the pinnacle of “hippyism”) would follow Tate’s murder by less than a week, I always viewed that as sneaking one last one in before Manson and his followers nailed down the coffin lid. By the time the Mason family had cemented their terrible legacy, it was pretty apparent that the shiny red apple of peace, love and harmony contained more than its fair share of rot. While Altamont may have slammed the door shut, it had begun to close long before then. In fact, some folks could see the end way before then: when Dennis Hopper’s now-iconic Easy Rider was first released, in May 1969, who could know that the man would seem like Nostradamus a mere seven months later?

Easy Rider is many things: a buddy film…a road movie…a counter-culture landmark…a return to the sensibilities of On the Road at a time when that attitude seemed not only passe but quaint…a drug movie…a critique of the fractured America of the ’60s…More than anything, however, Easy Rider serves as a death knell, a dire warning from one of the original “freak-flag-flyers” that times were changing and that the peace-and-love hippies were about to be swept from the Earth in the same way that the dinosaurs once were. You could stay the same, he posited, but you would die: that was a given. You could, of course, leave behind your ideals and survive by evolving into something else entirely, something colder, more calculating, less romantic. But isn’t this, in the end, the same sort of death as offered in the first option? Above all else, however, Hopper was making concrete the words of Bob Dylan, albeit casting them in a much darker light than Dylan originally intended: the times, indeed, were a changin’.

As a film, Easy Rider has a pretty simple structure: it’s essentially a series of vignettes featuring Billy (Dennis Hopper) and Wyatt (Peter Fonda), usually addressed as “Captain America.” As the two men travel around the back-roads of America, they meet with an odd assortment of characters, including a hitchhiker (Luke Askew) and his hippy commune, a drunken lawyer (Jack Nicholson), lots of rednecks and some good, old-fashioned, middle-American squares. They sell cocaine to Phil Spector (not the “person” of Phil Spector but the actual man: he’s billed as “The Connection” and wears one seriously yellow suit, complete with matching gloves and glasses), visit a whorehouse in New Orleans and leave a diner one step ahead of an angry mob of rednecks and small-town cops.

For the most parts, events in the film fall into a pretty basic formula: the duo rides to a new place, Billy acts like a square, the Captain tells him to chill out, there’s a musical interlude and the whole thing repeats. Each interlude, however, serves as a way for Hopper (who also wrote the screenplay, with Fonda) to dig a little deeper into the whole notion of the “American Dream.” The opening pre-credits drug-dealing sequence begins with Steppenwolf’s version of “The Pusher,” before their iconic “Born to Be Wild” slams us right into the credits. It’s a subtle way to establish Billy and the Captain’s manifesto (they do whatever they want, man), while also commenting on changes in the pop culture zeitgeist: “The Pusher” was written by Hoyt Axton, a popular folk singer in the early ’60s but it was Steppenwolf’s cover, not the original, that Hopper used. As one of the “heavier” new bands to emerge in the late ’60s, Steppenwolf was a good representation of the direction music was taking, at the time, away from the folk and early rock of the ’60s and into the hard rock and metal of the ’70s. Steppenwolf was pushing Axton out, just as the darker mid-late ’60s was crowding out the peace and optimism of the earlier part of the decade.

They end up on the hitchhiker’s commune but don’t get to stay long: the hippies end up picking on and ostracizing Billy, leading us to the notion that maybe these “peaceniks” aren’t quite as nice as they first seem. Although he couldn’t have known it at the time, Hopper was prophesying what would happen with the Manson family: the hippy exterior concealed a dangerous, deranged interior. Lest it be thought that Hopper is unduly picking on the counterculture (which is rather absurd, since he’s been a genuine, card-carrying member of the counterculture for his entire life/career), we also get scenes like the ones where Billy and the Captain get arrested for “parading without a permit” in a small town and are, essentially, chased out of a diner by a group of locals (including the sheriff) that are a few pitchforks away from the mob in Frankenstein. If the counterculture isn’t necessarily who they say they are, then the average middle-American “square” is exactly what they seem to be: small-minded, suspicious, frightened and utterly resentful of the “freedom” that Billy and the Captain represent. That these small-town folk and rednecks will, ultimately, end up being the undoing of Billy, the Captain and George (Nicholson) is certainly telling: although the counterculture has begun to collapse from the inside, its greatest threat still comes from the outside – the world at large.

All of these events eventually culminate in a truly apocalyptic ending for Billy and the Captain (and poor George, of course), although it’s a finale that would probably only provoke a shrug from the kinds of people who helped perpetrate it: those long-haired, weird bastards got what was coming to them. While the finale few moments of Easy Rider holds the answer to Billy and the Captain’s fates, it’s a moment just before that actually spells everything out for an entire generation. After finally achieving their “goal” of visiting New Orleans for Mardi Gras and surviving everything that came before, Billy is absolutely triumphant: they’re both “rich” now, thanks to the opening drug deal and have finally “made it.” “That’s what you do, man,” he tells the Captain, “you go for the big money.” The Captain’s response, however, takes the wind out of not only Billy’s sails but our own, as well: “We blew it, man.” By compromising their principles and losing sight of the “big picture” (changing the world for the better), Billy and the Captain (along with the entire “Free Love” movement) have truly “blown it.” The true extent wouldn’t be felt for some time, of course, but the writing was on the wall: whatever moment might have existed was now past and the movement would continue to spin out into irrelevance.

As a pivotal moment in the history of the counterculture, Easy Rider, much like Kerouac’s On the Road, cannot be easily discounted. Although certain elements have, by necessity, become dated, the overall themes and angles of the film hold up surprisingly well. As a film, Easy Rider is quite good, with sterling performances from Hopper, Fonda and Nicholson, along with some excellent cinematography that is reminiscent of the same year’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It’s always a hoot to see Hopper play the “straight” guy, particularly with the decades of crazy characters that would come after this. Nicholson, in particular, is excellent, providing yet another example of why he became one of the most beloved actors of all time. There’s a sense of playfulness that easily recalls Depp’s work in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, although Nicholson owned this type of role for some time before Depp wandered down Jump Street.

If there can be any complaints, it would have to be that the film definitely becomes formulaic well before the ending, although the final 15 minutes are still some of the most powerful film moments ever. Even though the film seems a bit dated now (the commune scene, in particular, is of its era, complete with a truly bizarre mime performance and some really hippy-dippy philosophizing), it’s held up much better than similar films of the era, such as Fonda’s ultra-silly The Trip from a few years earlier. In the end, Easy Rider exists as both a fascinating curio of a forgotten era and a timely reminder that we must be ever vigilant, if we hope to truly change the world. As Sisyphus knew, the moment you quit pushing forward and forging new ground is the moment where the boulder begins to slide back down the hill. In the ’60s, the hippies managed to push the rock quite a ways up the hill. The tragedy, of course, is that it crushed them all on the way back down.