8/16/15 (Part Two): Two Against the World

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A Most Violent Year, Abel Morales, Albert Brooks, Alessandro Nivola, Alex Ebert, All Is Lost, American Dream, Ben Rosenfield, Bradford Young, capitalism, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Christopher Abbott, cinema, corruption, David Margulies, David Oyelowo, dramas, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Elyes Gabel, family business, film reviews, films, Giselle Eisenberg, heating oil, heists, hijacking, husband-wife relationship, husband-wife team, immigrants, J.C. Chandor, Jason Ralph, Jerry Adler, Jessica Chastain, John Procaccino, Margin Call, Movies, New York City, oil industry, organized crime, Orthodox Jews, Oscar Isaac, period-piece, personal codes, Peter Gerety, Pico Alexander, Quinn Meyers, Ron Patane, set in New York City, set in the 1980's, snubbed at the Oscars, suicide, the American Dream, writer-director

While most people will freely admit to having some sort of unalterable moral code, the reality is much less black and white: I’m willing to wager that we’ve all compromised our personal codes, from time to time…that’s just what life is about. Perhaps you’ve tolerated prejudicial beliefs from an otherwise beloved relative. Perhaps you’re an environmentalist who’s taken a soul-killing corporate job with a King Kong-sized carbon footprint in order to pay the bills. When faced with the choice between suffering for our “code” or bending our beliefs in order to achieve some measure of happiness, it’s tempting to say that we would all be able to stand firm in the face of adversity. It’s tempting, sure…but is it true?

Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac), one half of the married couple that stands at the exact center of writer/director J.C. Chandor’s A Most Violent Year (2014), is a man with one of those aforementioned “unalterable moral codes,” an individual who prides himself on always taking “the path that is most right.” Abel is a man with principles, with drive, ambition and an internal compass that always keeps him oriented towards true north…or, as it turns out, his own personal notion of true north. When his world begins to collapse around him, however, Abel will be forced into a rather unenviable position: greet his massing enemies with the violence and corruption that they’ve shown him or stick to his code and, quite possibly, become nothing more than a minor footnote in someone else’s story. As Pink Floyd so eloquently put it: “a walk-on part in the war or a lead role in a cage”…Abel can have either one but he can’t have both.

Kicking off in the Big Apple during the titular “violent year” (also known as 1981), Chandor’s newest opus concerns Abel and his wife, Anna (an absolutely ferocious Jessica Chastain), as they try to carve out their own piece of the American Dream. They own a heating oil company and have just started the process to acquire a prime piece of seafront real estate, all the better to bring in their own shipments directly and cut out the middle man. While Abel tries to pull together the $1.5 million that he’ll need for the deal, he also must deal with a raft of other problems including his mercenary competitors, a nearly non-stop barrage of violent fuel hijacking and an overly zealous district attorney (David Oyelowo) who’s been investigating the Morales’ company for several years.

After another series of thefts, including one where one of Abel’s drivers, Julian (Elyes Gabel), gets his jaw broken, the head of the teamsters (Peter Gerety) insists that all of Abel’s drivers be issued handguns: he refuses to put his men into any more unsafe situations, despite Abel’s protests that faked gun permits are only going to add to his legal woes. As this is going on, Abel surprises an intruder in his home, a shady individual who drops a gun as he flees. Anna, putting two and two together, realizes that the attempted invasion might not be part of the year’s “crime wave” but actually related to their current problems with the company. The message is clear: the Morales’ aren’t safe anywhere, including their own home.

As Abel watches his carefully constructed plan fall apart, piece by piece, he’s goaded by his loose-cannon wife to take more drastic, unsavory measures: she’s the daughter of a mobster, after all, and those guys always know how to take care of business. Abel has that aforementioned “personal code,” however, and he’s determined to do everything on the up-and-up, even if it means putting his family and business through the wringer. When Julian gets attacked again and takes matters into his own hands, however, it forces Abel to scramble and try to put all the pieces back together before his time runs out on the real estate deal. Will Abel stick to his code or will he give in to the violence around him and respond in kind? Will he become the monster that he fears in order to get the life that he deserves?

Extremely stylish, beautifully shot and as cold as an iceberg, A Most Violent Year packs plenty of punch but still manages to fall short (to this viewer, at least) of Chandor’s previous film, the “Redford on a boat” mini-epic, All is Lost (2013). There’s plenty to like and respect here, no doubt: Chandor is a sure-hand as both writer and director, displaying an admirable ability to cut the fat and get right to the meat of the situation. That being said, A Most Violent Year feels too long and bloated for the relatively simple story beats involved: the structure and pacing feel off, leaving too much “dead air” and sapping some of the film’s forward momentum.

One aspect of the film that manages to shoot for the moon and score brilliantly, however, is the extraordinary performances. Front to back, A Most Violent Year is loaded with so many memorable performances and masterfully acted scenes that he handily establishes itself as a real actors’ showcase. The supporting cast, alone, would make the film worth a watch under any other circumstances: Albert Brooks turns in another great, weary performance as Abel’s lawyer/confidant; Oyelowo is solid as a rock as the dogged D.A.; Gabel offers up some genuine anguish as the conflicted Julian (the parallels between his failure and Abel’s success are one of the film’s most subtle motifs) and Jerry Adler (perhaps best known for his recurring roles as Hesh in The Sopranos) brings a surprisingly gentle, paternal quality to his performance as the Orthodox Jewish owner of the property that Abel and Anna are trying to buy.

The real stars of the show, however, are undoubtedly Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain. For his part, Isaac downplays the character of Abel masterfully, allowing all of the anger, frustration and fear to bubble and boil just below the surface until it finally explodes skyward in a truly volcanic display. He’s a case study in restraint and chilly resolve and Isaac works wonders with nothing so much as a soft word and piercing glare.

Chastain, on the other hand, is a completely unrestrained force of nature, the raging hurricane that tosses the rest of the cast around like so much flying junk. To not put too fine a point on it, she’s absolutely astounding in the film: it’s impossible to look away whenever she’s onscreen. From the stunning showpiece where she blows away the wounded deer to the fist-raising moment where she tells Oyelowo’s D.A. just where he can shove it, Chastain’s Anna is, easily, one of the most memorable modern cinematic creations.

Less Kay Corleone than Ma Barker, Anna is the true power behind the throne and Chastain tears into the role with absolute gusto. The fact that she wasn’t nominated for an Oscar only goes to show how vapid that particular process is: the fact that her performance was considered a “supporting” role in other nominations only goes to show how flawed that rationale is. Quite plainly, Chastain is as much a part of A Most Violent Year as Isaac is…perhaps more so, to be honest.

Despite the top-shelf performances, gorgeous cinematography (Bradford Young also shot Selma (2014), giving him two prestige pictures in the same year), great score (despite not caring for Alex Ebert’s main gig in Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, his score is absolutely perfect) and effective mise en scene, I still found myself slightly let down by the whole thing. Perhaps it speaks more to personal choice than any major flaws in the film (short of really trite ending to Julian’s arc, there aren’t many major missteps) but A Most Violent Year never quite struck me as “essential,” merely very well-made.

In truth, short of two chase scenes (one decent, the other a real showstopper), the whole film ends up being rather uneventful. Sure, Abel and Anna are faced with a seemingly insurmountable array of problems but each issue ends up being resolved a bit too casually to provide much tension. The resolution of the Julian storyline, the resolution of the fuel hijacking, the resolution of the property deal…in each case, it feels as if Abel and Anna are plucked from the stew-pot just as the water begins to get nice and hot. One of the things that really struck me about the chase scene between Abel and the hijackers is how unhinged and dangerous it felt: for that brief time period, I really found myself questioning the outcome. Were that overriding sense of danger more present throughout the film, perhaps it might have gripped me a little tighter.

Ultimately, A Most Violent Year is a film that deserves no small amount of praise: the performances, alone, are enough to make this a must-watch. That being said, it’s also a film that never quite sunk its claws into me, never quite demanded my complete adoration. Perhaps, in the end, A Most Violent Year is a perfect case of “different strokes for different folks”: extremely well-made and quite evocative, there’s nothing overtly wrong with the film, yet it never quit kicks like it’s supposed to.

That’s quite alright, however: I’ll keep looking forward to Chandor’s films just like I have ever since All is Lost proved him to be a modern master. In an age where “bigger, louder, dumber” seems to rule the box-office, we could always use more films like A Most Violent Year. Essential? Not quite. Worth your time? Without a shadow of a doubt.

2/11/15: Our Hero

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American Dream, anti-hero, Best of 2014, Bill Paxton, capitalism, character dramas, cinema, City of Angels, crime journalism, Dan Gilroy, dark films, directorial debut, dramas, ethics, favorite films, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, Jake Gyllenhaal, James Newton Howard, journalistic ethics, Kevin Rahm, L.A., Los Angeles, Louis Bloom, Michael Hyatt, misanthropes, Movies, Nightcrawler, Price Carson, Rene Russo, Riz Ahmed, Robert Elswit, set in Los Angeles, snubb, sociopath, tabloid journalism, Taxi Driver, the American Dream, Travis Bickle, writer-director

If it’s true that we get the heroes that we deserve, then Louis Bloom may just be the quintessential hero for our modern era. Consider this: he’s fearless, driven and in a constant quest to improve his standing in life. He’s a go-getter who pulls himself up by his bootstraps, sets his sights on a goal and, through hard work and perseverance, achieves just what he sets out to do. A fierce believer in the “American Dream,” Louis is also proof-positive that said dream can, in fact, be achieved: work as hard as he does and the world is your oyster. That Louis is also an unrepentant misanthrope with such a cold, reptilian disdain for his fellow humans that he cheerfully lies, cheats and extorts them to further his own ends is of little concern: at the end of the day, the guy gets the job done, right? Isn’t that really all that matters?

Louis Bloom, as played by the increasingly impressive Jake Gyllenhaal, is the very heart and center of Dan Gilroy’s quietly stunning Nightcrawler (2014), a nocturnal trudge through the muck of Los Angeles that manages to serve as both a spiritual and logical successor to Scorsese’s untouchable Taxi Driver (1976). Part twisted love letter to the City of Angels, ala Drive (2011), part depraved character study and completely focused on the myth of the American Dream, Nightcrawler is a stunning piece of filmcraft. Decidedly old-fashioned yet never anything less than “of the moment,” Gilroy’s film holds a mirror up to modern society and asks the all-important question: “Do you like what you see?” That some folks might answer in the affirmative makes Louis Bloom as necessary today as Travis Bickle was in the ’70s.

Quite simply, Nightcrawler is the story of one man’s quest to make something of himself, by hook or by crook. We first meet Bloom as a petty thief, albeit a particularly motor-mouthed, self-assured and ruthless one. In no time, however, Louis has set his sights on a slightly more “respectable” line of work: amateur crime journalism. After getting the gist of the job from grizzled veteran Joe Loder (Bill Paxton), Bloom is up and running on his own, attracting the attention of Nina (Rene Russo), news director for a Z-grade local station. He’s so successful that even hires an assistant, Rick (Riz Ahmed), although the poor guy is more of a meagerly-paid intern than an equal partner. As Louis continues to claw his way to the top of the heap, making himself a complete gadfly to the police, his rival photographers and everyone he comes into contact with, his ambitions get bigger and bigger. When the opportunity comes up for Louis to, literally, “create” the biggest story of his nascent career, our humble “hero” dives in headfirst: he’s going to be the best in the biz, regardless of who has to suffer or die in the process. After all, what’s survival of the fittest without a little collateral damage, eh?

In every way, Nightcrawler is an amazing film, as streamlined and driven as the antihero who pulls all the onscreen strings like a malevolent puppet master. It’s almost impossible for me to believe that this is actually Dan Gilroy’s debut film: prior to this, he served as screenwriter for films like Freejack (1992) (a childhood favorite), Tarsem’s quirky The Fall (2006) and The Bourne Legacy (2012). Gilroy also wrote the script, which is full of so many incredibly subtle little touches that it’s impossible to list all of the highlights. There’s a premium put on character development here, which lends a nice sense of three-dimensionality to the film: while the film’s themes and basic set-up echoes Taxi Driver in some fairly significant ways, it’s this attention to character detail that really reminds me of Scorsese’s classic.

Robert Elswit, who serves as P.T. Anderson’s resident director of photography, produces some undeniably beautiful images here: in many ways, Nightcrawler is as much about the heart and soul of Los Angeles as it is about Louis Bloom and Elswit’s gorgeous photography really drives this home. From twinkling night-time cityscapes to iconic landmarks like Laurel Canyon, L.A. has rarely looked this inviting, neon-lit pretty poison for its clusters of residents. There’s also a nicely atmospheric, subtle score by composer James Newton Howard that helps to envelop the audience in the city’s smoky mystique: everything about Nightcrawler is a fully immersive experience.

Gilroy gets some exceptionally strong performances from a very solid supporting cast, something which definitely reminded me of Taxi Driver. Riz Ahmed, who was quite good in Four Lions (2010), is equally strong here as Louis’ surrogate conscience: his character has a nicely tragic arc that serves as perfect complement to Bloom, as does his nervous, fidgety performance. Bill Paxton is pretty great as Loder: there’s nothing phoned-in about his performance and the scene where he calls Bloom a “twerp” is a particular highlight, as is the haunting bit where his staring eyes provide the loudest condemnation possible. Rene Russo, returning to dramatic roles for the first time in a decade (not counting her appearances in the Thor franchise), is quite amazing here: she really brings the character of Nina to life and her inevitable “corruption” is as painful to watch as it is foregone. Special mention must also be made of Kevin Rahm, who brings an unusual degree of nuance and depth to the character of Nina’s editor, Frank. Frank serves as the film’s sober voice of reason, standing aghast at Bloom’s increasing sociopathic tendencies, even as Nina and the others bend over backwards to accommodate him. It’s a thankless role, in many ways, but Rahm brings such a sense of nobility and moral integrity to the character that he proves integral to the film’s final destination.

As great as the rest of the cast is, however, all pale in comparison to Gyllenhaal’s stunning portrayal of the ultimate creepazoid. From his constantly shifting eyes, to his hunched body language, to the eerie half-smile that always ghosting across his lips, Louis Bloom is a thoroughly unforgettable character, brought to vibrant, unsettling life by Gyllenhaal. Similar to DeNiro’s performance as Travis Bickle, Gyllenhaal is all-in: there’s nothing about this that feels like acting…everything about Bloom feels completely, uncomfortably and terrifyingly real. Aside from one notable exception, everything about Louis Bloom is strangely serene and placid, still waters that conceal ravenous sharks. It’s an amazing performance and, quite frankly, one of the very best of the entire year. While Nightcrawler’s complete absence from the upcoming Academy Awards is a crime, Gyllenhaal’s absence from the Best Actor category is totally unfathomable: for the second time in the same year (Enemy was the first), Gyllenhaal has been snubbed. While I’ve found Gyllenhaal to be a sturdy actor ever since Donnie Darko (2001), his career choices in the 2010s have been nothing short of revelatory: at this rate, he’s going to be one of the greatest living actors in a few short years, a statement which is not hyperbolic in the slightest. If anyone still has doubts about his abilities (which no one should), his portrayal of Louis Bloom should put them to rest: his work here is just as impressive as DeNiro’s in Taxi Driver, which is certainly no small praise.

At one point in Nightcrawler, Nina tries to get Louis an entry-level job at the news station, only for him to handily turn her down: “I wanna be the guy that owns the station that owns the camera,” he tells her and it’s a sentiment that should be familiar to lots of people. After all, who among us would rather continue to run in the rat-race if we got the opportunity to call the shots? Nightcrawler is such a powerful film precisely because of the inherent dichotomy of the “American Dream”: you step on plenty of people on the way to the top of the heap, all of whom have their own needs, wants and desires. As Gilroy gradually ratchets up the tension and Louis slowly journeys from “casual observer” to “active participant,” it’s easy to get swept up in his success. After all, isn’t this what everyone really wants: to be successful at whatever they happen to be doing? By the time Louis’ actions move from “questionable” to “downright scary,” we’re already so far down the rabbit-hole that it no longer really matters: in an era where mega-corporations and the wealthy control every aspect of society, the deck is already stacked…who are we to complain when someone finds a way to win a rigged game?

One of the more interesting criticisms I’ve heard leveled at Nightcrawler is that the film refuses to take a stand on Louis Bloom: his actions are presented without condemnation or qualification, not portrayed as the true acts of evil that they really are. I would counter this by saying that, as a mirror, Nightcrawler reflects back the image of whoever happens to be watching: plenty of folks will watch Bloom’s actions and be righteously offended, recognizing him as the dangerous sociopath that he really is. For many people, there is nothing justified or good about a system that prizes naked ambition and drive over any other considerations: building your fortune on the back of your fellow-man is not only immoral but bad for humanity, in general. By his very actions, Bloom is shown to be the antithesis of community and society: if anything, he’s but one small step removed from a complete psycho like Patrick Bateman.

Some people, however, will undoubtedly watch Nightcrawler and come away with an altogether different point of view. For these people, they might recognize Bloom as the very poster child for the American Dream: here, after all, is a guy who started with nothing and ended up with everything that he wanted. He achieved these goals not through handouts or outside assistance but through his own hard work and tenacity: he earned his “degree” on the streets, not in the hallowed halls of academia. The positioning of Bloom as a fledgling small business owner, at the end, is subtle but important: for many people, this is the culmination of a dream, making Bloom something of an inspiration.

In a world where we increasingly tell ourselves that the ends do, in fact, justify the means, Dan Gilroy’s instantly classic debut stands as bracing testimonial to the dangers of said belief. We might not like what Nightcrawler has to say but we would be absolute fools to ignore it.

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.