My Little Piece on Five Easy Pieces

Posted by Susan Doll on September 27, 2010

Five Easy Pieces, a seminal work of the Film School Generation, was originally released 40 years ago this month. In recognition of its anniversary, a restored 35mm print is making the rounds of art houses and special venues. Facets’ intrepid programmer, Charles Coleman, snatched it up, and Five Easy Pieces will be showing at our Cinematheque October 1 – 7.

This acclaimed film of counterculture alienation and dissatisfaction stars Jack Nicholson as Bobby Dupea , an oil rigger in Bakersfield, California, living a working-class life in a trailer park with his live-in girlfriend, Rayette. He works hard during the day, bowls in the evenings, and hangs out with his friend Elton and his wife, Stoney. Yet, the tetchy and prickly Bobby seems detached from it all; he is patronizing to his blue-collar crowd, indifferent and even cruel to Rayette, and generally too smart for the room. Stuck in a traffic jam on the highway, Bobby jumps from the car and climbs onto the back of a truck carrying a piano. He pulls back the tarp and begins playing a classical piece, oblivious to the din of traffic. It turns out that Bobby is no working-class stiff but an escapee from the rarefied world of an artistic family. Years earlier, Bobby had disappointed his father and siblings by leaving his comfortable if stilted upper-middle-class home. But, he is neither satisfied nor content with his new life and the substitute family he has gathered around him.

The film not only secured Jack Nicholson’s stardom but also established his persona as an alienated outsider or unconventional misfit. Nicholson’s characters from this era embody the issues and concerns of the counterculture generation. Though Pacino and DeNiro often come to mind during discussions of the Film School Generation, their signature roles, onscreen personas, and New York accents are urban-based, lacking the more generalized American quality of Nicholson’s George Hanson (Easy Rider), Buddusky (The Last Detail), J.J. Gittes (Chinatown), R.P. McMurphy (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), and Bobby Dupea.

BILLY GREEN BUSH PLAYS BOBBY'S WORKING-CLASS PAL, ELTON.

Five Easy Pieces also established Bob Rafelson as a major director of the Film School Generation. Rafelson had helped develop the highly original television series The Monkees in the late 1960s, and when the series was canceled, he directed his first feature film, Head, a psychedelic experimental narrative using the faux musical group The Monkees as both the stars and the subject. Jack Nicholson cowrote and coproduced the film with Rafelson. In interviews, Rafelson claims that Nicholson had given up on acting after a decade of appearing in b-movies or in small character parts in major Hollywood films. Because he was not classic leading-man material, Nicholson believed he would never play the lead in a major production. Rafelson was impressed with the actor’s ability to mimic voices, impersonate characters, and act out all the parts while they were writing the script, and he promised Nicholson that he would play the lead in his next movie.

In the meantime, Rafelson’s production company with Bert Schneider and Steve Blauner, BBS, produced Easy Rider. After Rip Torn dropped out of the film, Nicholson stepped in to take the role of George Hanson, offering a breakthrough performance in an iconic film and earning an Academy Award nomination. Following Five Easy Pieces, which earned Nicholson another Oscar nomination, the actor embarked on the most critically successful period of his career with a succession of roles that captured the themes and preoccupations of the counterculture. Jazzed by the success of Five Easy Pieces, Rafelson and Nicholson fantasized about making several films together over the next few years that would feature the same character as he aged and evolved. As it happened, they did the next best thing; they collaborated on several films starring Nicholson in roles that suited his star image. The pair made four more films together: The King of Marvin Gardens (1972), The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981), Man Trouble (1992), and Blood and Wine (1996).

KAREN BLACK COSTARS AS RAYETTE, WHOSE THEME SONG IS TAMMY WYNETTE'S "STAND BY YOUR MAN."

Five Easy Pieces garnered four Academy Award nominations; in addition to Nicholson’s nod for best actor, the film was nominated as best picture, Karen Black was nominated for best actress, and Carole Eastman (as Adrien Joyce) received a nod for best original screenplay. The nominations reflect the strengths of the film—a well-developed screenplay with invigorating dialogue among unpleasant characters played by actors at the top of their game. Viewers who have never seen the film, or haven’t seen it in a long time, will recognize Ralph Waite (the father in The Waltons) as Bobby’s brother Carl, Sally Struthers (All in the Family) as Bobby’s one-night stand, and Fannie Flag (comedienne and author of Fried Green Tomatoes) as Elton’s wife, Stoney. Susan Anspach, a respected actress of the era, plays Carl’s fiancée who is drawn to Bobby but recognizes his inability to care about anyone, including himself.

But, it is Jack Nicholson who dominates the film in one of his finest performances. Bobby Dupea—as alienated from his substitute family as he is from his real one—snipes at Rayette, insults his so-called friends, dismisses his responsibilities, and occasionally explodes with pent-up rage. Bobby is certainly not a heroic protagonist, and in many scenes, he is downright unlikable, but that is the beauty of using a movie star in such a role. Nicholson’s natural charm and charisma prevent Bobby from being unbearable or unwatchable; indeed the opposite is true.

In the film’s most famous scene—the one shown in any retrospective of Nicholson’s career or overview of the Film School Generation—Bobby attempts to order a simple side of wheat toast at a diner. But, the diner’s meaningless rules and restrictions, which are symptomatic of the absurdity of the conventions and restrictions of modern society, won’t permit it. The waitress keeps telling him that no substitutions are allowed, which underscores Bobby’s fruitless attempts to “substitute” in other parts his life. He tries to substitute his working class friends for his real family, his job as an oil rigger for a career as a concert pianist, country music for classical, bowling for culture. With his pointed barbs aimed at the hard-edged waitress, Bobby mocks the rules that keep us chained to the system. In retrospect, most viewers remember his razor-sharp exchange with the waitress as a statement against a rigid society. But, this is not the end of the sequence, because he and his party are thrown out of the restaurant. Bobby doesn’t win the altercation; he doesn’t get to be an exception to the diner’s ludicrous rules; he doesn’t even get his wheat toast. Rafelson confirmed for many of that era what we already knew: Going against the system has its consequences and its price.

Bobby Dupea and his shortcomings are the end result of profound alienation. He is unable to communicate with his family members who are either crippled, which is signified by his father’s inability to speak after a stroke, or inflexible, which is symbolized by his brother’s neck brace. But, Rafelson doesn’t offer Bobby a viable alternative by romanticizing his substitute family of working-class stiffs and uneducated waitresses. Recent reviewers and bloggers have criticized Rafelson’s depiction of Elton, Stoney, and especially Rayette as one-dimensional, and the characters are certainly not positive portrayals of the working class, but their unflattering depiction makes it clear that Bobby will never find contentment or satisfaction with them. It’s a harsh interpretation of the family as a social institution that runs counter to Hollywood’s standard sentimental depiction; but, the dark side of the nuclear family is a recurring theme in Rafelson’s films, while alienation was a preoccupation of the Film School Generation.

JACK NICHOLSON AS BOBBY DUPEA, A SIGNATURE ROLE FOR THE ACTOR

Five Easy Pieces is filled with details that strengthen the fabric of the film, a testament to the rich screenplay by Rafelson and Carole Eastman. Though not used as a plot device, the idea of absentee fathers/husbands is a running thread throughout the film. Bobby has long been estranged from his father because of failed expectations about family on both their parts, and though the old man cannot speak to his son because of his physical condition, Bobby’s monologue to him reveals that the two never really communicated at any point in their lives. Elton and Stoney seem to have a loving relationship, but he turns out to be a fugitive from the law and is hauled off to jail, leaving his wife to fend for herself emotionally and financially. Though Bobby is himself the product of an emotionally absent father, he repeats history when he leaves behind a pregnant Rayette, forcing his child to grow up without a father.

The use of sound in Five Easy Pieces reveals the talents of a smart filmmaker. Bobby was trained as a concert pianist and is capable of playing beautiful music, but instead he is surrounded by a cacophony of discordant sounds—an aural metaphor for his inner torment. The opening shot is a noisy bulldozer dumping a load of dirt toward the camera; later, bowling balls clash into pins, steel pipes clang together in the oil field, and, most tellingly, traffic noises drown out Bobby’s spontaneous concert on the back of the truck.

BOBBY'S IMPROMPTU CONCERT IN THE MIDDLE OF TRAFFIC

The reputation of Five Easy Pieces is secured in the history books, but I can’t help but wonder how young audiences will perceive the film. So many young viewers are completely unfamiliar with classic films from the past and are not accustomed to unheroic protagonists, character-driven narratives, or movies designed to provoke thought rather than sensation. Bob Rafelson , who was not a prolific filmmaker, remains an unsung director who is now largely forgotten, while young viewers know Nicholson only as a grinning prankster who shows up at award shows in sunglasses. Nicholson’s recent films such as About Schmidt and The Bucket List drip in the sentiment that his signature work eschewed; and, even his violent, dark character in The Departed lacked the social significance of his roles from the Film School era. Alienation from mainstream ideals is not part of the zeitgeist as it was in 1970; indeed, young generations embrace the very ideology the counterculture opposed—consumerism, corporate culture, the American Dream, and an addiction to technology that lulls instead of stimulates. After 40 years, Five Easy Pieces still offers a smart, critical portrait of a society in distress; I don’t think American movie-going audiences have kept pace with it.

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14 Responses My Little Piece on Five Easy Pieces

Posted By debbe : September 27, 2010 2:45 pm

excellent blog suzi doll. i love five easy pieces and I agree with your assessment about younger viewers.. what they will think of a film that was so monumental and seminal for a certain age group. wish i could see it again.

Posted By Kingrat : September 27, 2010 4:10 pm

Loved your blog, suzidoll. Like you, I’m a fan of Five Easy Pieces. Thank you for making the point that Bobby’s rebellion at the diner may be cool, but he doesn’t get his toast. Great point about substitution as a key metaphor in the film. Yes!

Would love to see you do a follow-up on the other Rafelson & Nicholson films, none of which I’ve seen. I’d never even heard of Man Trouble or Blood and Wine. The only other Rafelson film I know is Black Widow, a fine film in a different, more conventional style.

Posted By skizziks : September 27, 2010 8:49 pm

Love your writing suzidoll, another great dissertation here. Saw this film when I was in my early 20′s and though I enjoyed it then, watching it again recently (in my 30′s) was a revelation, as I’d had time enough to gather the life experience to appreciate how profound this wonderful movie is. Must take exception, however, to lumping “About Schmidt” in with “The Bucket List” and dismissing Nicholson’s role as “sentimental”; while certainly a gentler soul than his angry young man characters, I’d say Schmidt is more melancholy than sentimental. For most of the movie he’s relentlessly tight-assed, self-centered and oblivious, and even at the very end when he breaks through to some real emotion, it’s questionable how much he understands it himself. “Sentimental” implies the smoothing of rough edges and a simplification of human nature; I didn’t get any of that from “About Schmidt”.

Posted By NCeddie : September 28, 2010 12:26 am

Thank you, suzidoll, for this fine essay on Five Easy Pieces. I have not seen it since its initial release. But the many threads you discuss running through the story are right on the mark, just as they were 40 years ago. With that high thread count, Rafelson wove whole cloth out of the era. I hope younger viewers will have a trained eye to discover those threads– and us– from 40 years ago.

Posted By Al Lowe : September 29, 2010 4:23 am

Suzi, I think this is probably the best thing you have ever written. It is a beautiful analysis of it and its place in film history.

I can watch FIVE EASY PIECES any time that I want to since i have the VHS. I also have BLOOD AND WINE, which features the irrepressible Jennifer Lopez.
Noone should ever watch MAN TROUBLE. It make EXTRAORDINARY SEAMAN look brilliant in comparison.
FIVE EASY PIECES is easily the best of Rafelson’s output; it reminds me of Herman Mankiewicz who wrote the wonderful CITIZEN KANE and many other movies – almost all of them bad.

Your last grafs make me despair for the younger generation. You teach them, Suzi. Is there hope there?

A while back I got into an argument in the Morlock blog with Moirafinnie who dissed GONE WITH THE WIND, saying that her film students were repulsed by the racial prejudice implied in the film. I restrained myself but I felt like responding, “Are your students morons? Are they jackasses? Are they idiots? How did they get into college anyway? Regretably there is racial prejudice obvious in the film but there is SO MUCH MORE in that film.”

During most of my lifetime, TV stations used to show old movies all the time to fill time and so they could air commercials. That is how I became knowledgable about film. I suspect this is true for all the Morlocks.
Now those old movies are mainly available only on TCM. I hope the channel goes on forever, but my life experience tells me this may not be true.
I am glad that the station is promoting itself through the Film Festival and other avenues.
I suspect that 90 percent of the younger generation doesn’t know or care about old movies.
I have a niece, one of the few in my family, who, like me, graduated from college. She knows of TCM but doesn’t watch it. She told me of her and friends putting on the channel when it aired silents and laughing at the exaggerated acting.
She went to Paris one summer. I lent her my DVD of FUNNY FACE when she came back. I didn’t get the response I hoped for. I think she started to think that maybe Uncle Al was gay. (I’m not.)

There is one thing in my life that I know that I love – and that is old movies.

Please, Suzi. Tell me there is hope out there. Tell me that respect and love for old movies will continue and that some people in the younger generation care.

Posted By Jeff L. Shannon : September 29, 2010 12:24 pm

To Al, cool to see you on here again!

& when you get an extra minute,please reply to my last items sent your way

J.S.

Posted By Jeff L. Shannon : September 29, 2010 12:39 pm

Although the *OSCARS that yr (l970) went for the magnificent/bio *”Patton” The annual Pre-AMPAS Critics Awards voted for “Five Easy Pieces”

& to Al again, don’t hold your breath buddy, on young folks loving: Hollywoods Golden Age/Studio-System-(l925-l960)-(NOTE: For fans of that glorious era get the book “Genius of the System” by Thomas Schatz)

A tonage of young people-(even regular moviegoers) have no idea whom the likes of *S. Tracy, *H. Fonda, Garbo, *I. Bergman, Judy & others are, but do know who>*Julia Roberts, *G. Clooney & Brad Pitt are?
Now I like them too, but it’s ridiculous!!!

I agree the rarely known of l996 “Blood & Wine” (***) is a good one & only made $1 million.

& I’m so sick & tired-(FED UP) with people taking offence to what is essentially a time capsule (*”GWTW”)
If it were up to them, these flix would never be allowed to even air or, have a false note to them, by re-editing all things they find offensive!!! It;’s “In” these days to be offended in the 1st place

J.S.

Posted By Jeff L. Shannon : September 29, 2010 12:41 pm

I know a girl of late 20′s, that didn’t even know whom *James
Cagney was!!!

Posted By Jeff L. Shannon : September 29, 2010 12:44 pm

“You want me to hold the chicken” “I want you to hold it between your knees” unquote

Posted By NCeddie : September 29, 2010 4:59 pm

*** Jeff and others ***

I posted a brief clip of the Gish sisters greeting Mary Pickford and her mother in a parking lot in the 20′s on YouTube. A girl in her early twenties responded. She admired the silent works of Gish and others and is educating herself about early cinema. We have had several lengthy messaging sessions wherein I have encouraged her interests in delving into silent film. Ha! I feel like I am sowing seeds to keep the genre alive.

Posted By suzidoll : September 29, 2010 6:24 pm

Al: Good to hear from you. It’s been so long. And, gosh, thanks for the compliment. And, you are so good at inspiring conversation.

My experience with younger movie-goers comes from teaching 20-25 new students each semester at a community college, which I always feel is a cross-section of “regular people,” for lack of a better word. The good news is that once the class is underway, they start to appreciate the old movies (even the silents) and some become bona fide classic lovers by the end of the semester. Last year I showed FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG, and Paul Muni had some of them in tears. I am proud to say that most students tell me that there whole perspective changed because of my class. Very gratifying.

The bad news is that without a context to view these movies (like a class, or a mentorship as NCeddie mentions above), they would never have watched them on their own.

And, I blame in part the marketing strategies of the home-viewing industry. I have been involved in the home-viewing biz as a writer for decades now, and it is rare for other writers/marketers to have backgrounds in film. (Big exception: Facets, where almost everyone is a bonafide cinephile.) Marketers don’t know anything about older films, don’t appreciate them, and therefore don’t know how to sell them. Old movies are marketed to the movie-buff crowd, not to mainstream viewers. The home viewing biz pushes new movies for sell-through; that’s their thrust. That whole approach to selling videos, then DVDs, as sell-through has glorified the new at the expense of the old. It has resulted in a kind-of unspoken idea that getting the latest title on DVD is so much more important than buying an older one. The whole drive to colorize years ago was part of this; in other words, how can we make old movies look more like newer ones? Add color.

It’s a shame that major corporations like Blockbuster and Netflix yanked control of the home-viewing market. They treat movies like a product to be consumed, not culture to be appreciated. I remember our salesmen at Facets telling us that Blockbuster was not interested in some of the best films we ever released on our label because they were “old.” They weren’t interested in anything we had if it was older than two years. That was their only criteria. I remember them taking a piece of junk that we were distributing for a foreign company rather than a classic Eastern Euro film, because the former was only a year old.

Young people growing up in this kind of corporate consumer culture are going to pick up those same heinous ideas and attitudes–such as, old movies are not worthy viewing; black and white movies are only for geeky movie buffs; why watch movies with long-dead stars; watching movies at home–or, good grief, on a cellphone–is just as good as watching them in theaters; high quality images means razor-sharp focus, etc., so the softer focus in older movies means a bad quality image (I have read this in online DVD reviews).

Like you, when I was young, I watched movies on television. And, we had no say in the programming. We watched whatever was being aired. I am now grateful for that, because I watched movies that I might not have watched on my own, and it expanded my tastes. I also think it made movie-lovers out of my generation.

The dark side to the video and DVD industry is that it has narrowed the tastes of the average movie-goer. Now that movie-goers have the choice of what to view, they pick only the familiar; the younger the viewer, the more likely this is to be true. Younger viewers may be more visually sophisticated but their tastes are extremely narrow, with little tolerance for anything outside their tastes.

I wish film history and aesthetics could be taught in all schools by QUALIFIED teachers, like music or art. I think that would help a lot.

Posted By Jenni : October 4, 2010 9:51 pm

I saw 5 Easy Pieces, as a highschooler in the 1980s, and I didn’t like it, probably due to Nicholson’s character and his ignoring of his family and his treatment of the blue collar friends and his girlfriend. I found it a depressing film, but I do admit, the diner scene is a classic.

Posted By Lisa Wright : October 7, 2010 1:14 am

Great article, great postings. I have little to add, as I know you speak with knowledge and experience about the home viewing market. It is true that EVERY film that I have first learned something about, particularly in an academic setting, I have enjoyed twice as much. If you don’t know WHY an older film is considered a classic, if you have nothing to compare it to… you cannot know or enjoy it on that level. If you don’t know the history of the time period, you will likely miss the social commentary. I TOTALLY agree that film appreciation should be taught just as appreciation of music or literature is taught, by qualified instructors. I was lucky enough to have Film Study with Mr. Duffy in high school and it taught me what a rich artistic medium film is. I doubt Film Study still exists due to today’s shrinking school budgets. Art seems to be the first subject to lose funds. Do not lose hope, though. Children or young adults who are drawn to film will find film education. The Movie Morlocks are doing their part! thank you!

Posted By Neville A. Ross : November 13, 2010 9:12 pm

@Jeff L. Shannon:

I’m so sick & tired-(FED UP) with people taking offence to what is essentially a time capsule (*”GWTW”)
If it were up to them, these flix would never be allowed to even air or, have a false note to them, by re-editing all things they find offensive!!! It;’s “In” these days to be offended in the 1st place!

Mr. Shannon, if you were a person of color, I bet that you would feel a lot differently about ‘being offended’. People of color (especially young people of color) are tired of media that does not depict them in a flattering light, or that that shows past racial insults and slights unabated and unopposed-that’s why they hate or dislike older movies (although they also hate newer ones that still allow the same offenses to be shown on screen.) They also want to see more people of color on screen than is shown now (check out this blog and its posts to see why.) This attitude toward older movies may have also rubbed off on young white people, making them hyper-aware of the same issues and less willing to see older films if they are so dated.

Another reason why younger people may not have any interest in older movies is because of the nostalgia industry and how it’s crushed the culture of the present, as well as the myth displayed by the nostalgia industry that the past was ‘the good old days’ and the Republican Party’s/Tea Bagger’s championing of same (which may also account for why a lot of people voted for Obama.) They want to see America go forward in a new direction, and old movies/old culture sound dead to them-I certainly know that the nostalgia boom and the scourge of ‘classic rock’ that it’s brought forth has bored me to tears and made me tired. Nobody wants to just regurgitate old culture all of the time, and old movies feel just like that, thereby resulting in this backlash against older culture.

A fresh new wayfresh new way way will have to be found by Suzidoll and others to convince younger people that older movies are worth seeing, and without simultaneously blasting their culture that they like right now. Also, a way has to be found to deal with representations of people of color in older movies so that young people of color won’t feel insulted by what they see on screen. And people like yourselves also have to accept that not everybody will care about older movies/TV shows/records, etc. It will take hard work, some soul searching on the parts of Suzidoll and Mr. Shannon, and a willingness to accept the good in current culture and not see the bad (as well as a willingness to not focus on ‘the good old days’ as the only good period in life) but it can be done.

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