Easy, but not simple
For decades I avoided watching Easy Rider. The very concept of a film that follows the path of two drug selling, drug using, motorcycle hippies didn’t appeal to me. I mean sure Jack Nicholson was in it, but if I wanted to see this type of movie I would just go watch a Woodstock DVD or watch the 60s part of Forrest Gump.
Man, I was dumb when I was in college (weren’t we all?). Well, I’ve grown older and wiser. I have a wife and kids now. So when Sony Pictures released a nice blu-ray version of Easy Rider I went Doc Brown on this and said, “What the hell.”
Let me just tell you, fellow readers, if you have not seen this film before you will want to go out and rent it. It’s not simply about two drug selling, drug using, motorcycle hippies; it’s more than that. The film follows Wyatt and Billy across the country; from Los Angeles to New Orleans. Their sole purpose in their journey is to reach what they consider the ‘promise land’. Their ultimate goal of living the rest of their life rich and happy. The problem is as their ride across America continues they start to understand that the 60s era they embraced and held onto is ending. America is changing and changing fast. The friendly, peace-loving group they ran with has been replaced by the cold-hearted stares of a nation not willing to accept their soon-to-be extinct kind any longer. The end of the movie forms a definite conclusion in the most blunt and terrible of ways.
This movie changed me a bit. It made me appreciate a dying way of living. Wyatt and Billy weren’t simply leaving Los Angeles; they were escaping Los Angeles. The first scene in the film is of them buying drugs and Wyatt tossing his watch out into nowhere. The illusion of an ‘endless’ amount of time hung over these characters like the clouds over their heads. The next scene of the film is a busy highway in front of LAX where the pair intended to sell their drugs to make their fortunes; which came from a rich business man. The first two scenes define the beginning and ending of the characters, the journey was just the explanation drawn out.
Anyway, the film deserves respect and certainly your attention. Peter Fonda’s soft-spoken, stone-faced Wyatt was the in-between for Hopper’s 60s hippie and Nicholson’s ACLU, neatly cut George Hanson (who becomes yet another casualty, literally, in the ongoing message of change).
Easy Rider was a wonderful blend of 16mm and 35mm efforts. As you get to see almost every possible aspect of American way of living. It’s a soft-spoken ballad about change and how you simply cannot escape it.
What’s great about this film on Blu-ray is how positively breathtaking the scenery of the land is. As it’s now 40 years old, the film captured some truly beautiful elements that certainly aren’t that anymore. The last location (which is actually the first they shot) is a very young New Orleans during Mardi Gras. As everyone knows, Katrina decimated the beautiful city and it’s nicely captured on 16mm, now in HD, during its hay-day. If there was any film that should be loved for the journey, then let it be this one if only for the HD footage of America. With that said, the real reason you’re going to buy this is for the soundtrack. My goodness, I never had a movie that actually featured the entire soundtrack in the blu-ray booklet; with descriptions and opinions of the songs. Who does that? Yes, the audio is great.
As for features, it’s not filled to the brim, but the interesting making of’ featurette will give you a different opinion and point of view on the process of how it all came together. Who knew that Hopper and Fonda didn’t like each other (outside of the people who already knew that, of course)? Here’s a complete list:
– Shaking the Cage – Featurette with Hopper and Fonda
– Commentary with Hopper
– movieIQ – Using a BD-Live enabled Blu-ray Player’s internet connection, movieIQ allows viewers to immediately access continuously updated information on cast and crew and explore relevant trivia such as production facts, music and soundtrack information all tied to scenes within the movie