Customer Reviews

Five Easy Pieces

5 star:		(52)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Nominated for four Academy Awards, this 1970 film stars Jack Nicholson as Robert Dupea, a creative and alienated drifter who once held the promise of being a serious classical concert pianist. When we meet him, though, he's working on an oil rig, drinking, gambling, chasing women and treating his girlfriend, Rayette, badly. Karen Black plays Rayette, a loving and attractive, but not very intelligent, waitress who yearns to be a country western singer. And the sound track by Tammy Wynette, including "Stand By Your Man" are a contrast to the pieces by Mozart and Chopin that we hear later, when Nicholson visits his dying father in the family's secluded and upscale dwelling. There, he enters into an impossible relationship with his brother's sophisticated girlfriend played by Susan Anspach.

The film moves fast and held my interest, with a wide variety of episodes to further deepen the intensity of the Nicholson character. There's a nude scene with Sally Struthers as one of Nicholson's many women. There's a scene in a diner with a waitress where Nicholson tries to place an order for items not on the menu. There's a scene where he picks up two lesbian hitchhikers, who are planning on moving to Alaska. There's a scene with Nicholson's sister, played by Lois Smith, in a recording studio where she is playing classical music and treated with disrespect and contempt by the staff. And there's a scene where Nicholson defends his girlfriend, Rayette, against upper class snobbery.

This is a film that works as well today as it did in the 1970s. But it must have especially timely then and viewed as a cry for independence and freedom as the alienated Nicholson just keeps moving on. The screenplay by Carole Eastman, under the direction of Bob Rafelson, is excellent. And there's something about the story that makes us realize that there's a little bit of the Jack Nicholson character in all of us. Recommended.

Jack Nicholson is a wonderful actor, but since the early 1970s, virtually all of his performances have been variations of Jack playing Jack. This is not to say that he has not been terrific doing this, but there is a distinct impression that there hasn't been much of a stretch in his acting since Chinatown. Not so with Five Easy Pieces - Nicholson completely loses himself in the character of Bobby Dupee, and gives what is arguably his best performance ever. What's more, the film, which opened in 1970, depicts better than any other film the alienation of the generation of the late 1960s-early 1970s. Nicholson's Bobby Dupee is a talented classical musician who comes from a family of talented classical musicians. He has, however, chosen to deny his past by living (one might almost say "hiding") with his girl friend, Rayette (a terrific Karen Black) among blue collar workers. The bulk of the film centers on Bobby's return home to visit his father, who has suffered a stroke, and the interaction of Bobby (and Rayette) with various members of the household. Nicholson's acting talent was never more apparent than in the scene where he is out walking with his wheel-chair bound father and tries to explain why he has chosen the path he has taken. The scene has an improvisational quality, and Nicholson is both natural and moving. It is a moment that can stand with anything he has done since.

This was Nicholson's first "angry young man" role (you can't count "Easy Rider" because he really just played a nerd) and it's evident that he'd found his niche for almost every other role he's played. He's a natural. His performance is layered with angst, passion, soft- sensitivity, self-doubt, and a cross-section of just about every other emotion imaginable. This was his first starring role, and it's no wonder his career took off with such a formidable foundation. Supported by Karen Black (too bad she's never had as good a role since), Susan Anspach and the wonderful Lois Smith, the entire ensemble provides a thought-provoking study of a potentially rewarding life wrought with bad choices. This is very much of a character-driven film, and Bob Rafelson gives the actors free reign, a wise decision. The DVD is of excellent quality considering the low price. "Five Easy Pieces" set a major standard for many films of the 70's (and most of Nicholsons's (Last Detail, Cuckoo's Nest). From the standpoint of its historical value, the film is most instructive. It's also immensely entertaining. Don't miss it!!

I can't remember when I saw this one on the big screen. It was not long after Easy Rider and we had the idea that this Jack Nicholson had something to say to our 60's-70's counter-culture. He did have something to say with some of the sharpest acting I had ever seen. He out-classed the James Dean's and Marlon Brando's, but not with ease. Jack was workin' hard, switching from depressed concert pianist to hillbilly good time dude to misunderstood Romeo in five-minute intervals. No, make that changeable temperament every five seconds, truly an artistic milestone. Throw in an equally magnificent portrayal by Karen Black, sexy and hillbilly; Jessica Simpson, eat your heart out, and you have the couple of the year, 1970.

Jack's father is one of those evil patriarch's that hurt their kids bad, pushing them to greatness without an ounce of love. Consequently, the siblings are brilliant and eccentric. The daughter is a frumpy dope. The older son is a violinist with a neck injury, and then there's handsome Jack, shiftless, moving from bed to bed, crossing the country, a boozing bum. Back in the Vietnam years there was an examination of bourgeois life. Did we have to get a job and get married? Was everyone in a particular cubbyhole, mail in the funeral? Hence, we had the counter-culture, drugs, long haired hippies, sexual openness, and shiftless lifestyles. Bob Rafelson's film gives you that, but mercifully, with subtly. That last scene at the gas station says it all. I think directors would be hard pressed to sum up a film's theme so effectively with so little noise - amazing.

How can you not love a movie whose soundtrack successfully intermingles Tammy Wynette songs with classical music pieces??

I like to think of this film as more of a "mood piece" than a "character study". It succeeds tremendously as both; but if I had to describe to someone what is meant by a "mood piece" I would direct them right to this film. It epitomizes the early-70s American wasteland look and feel common in some great "New Hollywood" films of its time (Jack Nicholson was in several such movies, like the classics "The Last Detail" and "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest"). The scene outside the bowling alley especially captures this beautiful grit.

You all probably know the story, so I won't bother with the obligatory references to the diner scene, the hitchhikers, or the truly heartbreaking scene where Robert Eroica Dupea clumsily spills his guts to his sick father. I will admit it took several viewings to truly appreciate this film. But now I rank it as one of my favorites. It's rare to find a film that can take you to a time and place you weren't at and introduce you to people you've never known, yet feel it as if you had.

This one is not to be missed. Give it a few tries if you have to.

Five Easy Pieces is one of the landmark films of American Cinema in the 1970's. Hot off the success of Easy Rider, Jack Nicholson made the transition to leading man after wallowing in Roger Corman B-movie obscurity since the late fifties. Nicholson stars as Robert Dupea, one of his most complex and challenging roles. Robert is a tortured soul. Once a promising pianist, he left that lifestyle and his family and moved to work on an oil rig in Texas. Unable to connect with other people he hides himself behind a sarcastic and icy facade. His only friends are Ray ( Karen Black) a simple, yet nurturing woman with aspirations to become a singer and whom is Roberts girfriend and Elton ( Billy Green Bush) who works with him on the oil rig. Robert, disillusioned with his life and unsure of the future learns that his father is ill in Washington and travels to see him with Ray in tow. The middle act turns into a slapstick road movie with Helena Kallianinotes hilarious as a hitchhiker they pick up along the way. After arriving at his old home, Robert must comes to terms with his dysfunctional family and the musical career he abandoned. He also meets a woman named Catherine ( Susan Anspach) an aspiring pianist whom he feels attractive to and who has the passion for music that he once had or did he? One particular vivid scene that stands out for me toward the end of the film is when Robert tries to have a coversation with his estranged father, who is disabled by a stroke and wheel chair bound. The nuanced performance of Nicholson as he goes through a series of complex emotions before breaking down and crying in front of his father is heartbreaking. Ultimately Robert decides to escape from everything for the the last time and start over with a clean slate, as his existential journey begins at the end of the film. We the viewer are left uncertain, but satisfied .

In a story of two worlds and what happens when they collide, Jack Nicholson gives a performance that should have won an Academy Award. As Bobby Dupea, Nicholson abandons his privilaged life for that of an aimless drifter- something he will eventually apologize for. He goes from being a talented musician to working as an oil rigger but a family illness will bring him back to his affluent roots and it is here that he must decide the course the rest of his life will take. And while all the perfomances are excellent, it is Nicholson that keeps us spellbound. In a long career, he has played many facinating characters but in my humble opinion, it is as the wasted talent Bobby Dupea that Nicholson shines the brightest.

Five Easy Pieces starts with the symptoms of an undefined disease. Robert Dupea (Jack Nicholson), a narcissist, works on an oilrig with his friend, of sorts, Elton (Billy Green Bush). When he is not fighting off the smothering of his all too loving, but essentially witless girlfriend Rayette, he hangs out with Elton and his wife at the bowling alley. All the while exhibiting a bizarre moodiness, and extreme distaste at the apathy of these humble blue-collar people. But Five Easy Pieces is not a film about an arrogant elitist, it is a great character study of man who can not, or will not, fit anywhere. We learn that he was once a promising pianist, but gave that for reasons he never explains. A lesser film would have tried to explain why he had left the world of music, or why he had left his well to do family. That same lesser film, tens if not hundreds fit this description, would have pinned it down to childhood abuse or trauma or both. Five Easy Pieces never tries to explain the disease, instead it examines how a man tries to deal with the symptoms.

The early scenes in that parochial town have a snug appeal, but the more Robert is subjected to Rayette the more suffocated he feels. My guess is, he started dating her as a matter of sexual convenience, and inconveniently for him, she turned out to be a person. Without the heart, or perhaps avoiding the vexation leaving her would bring, he stays in this clearly incompatible relationship. And he treats her cruelly. Clearly something must happen, this is the time that he would usually leave to look for that new "auspicious beginning". Two things prevent him from doing so: 1) His girlfriend is pregnant. 2) His father is dying, and he must go up to Washington to see him.

On the road is where the film really comes alive. Aside from Nicholson's famous "Chicken salad sandwich" speech, there's the maniacal chain smoking lesbian they pick who raves about how unclean the world is. She's heading to Alaska because it looks "all white and clean in the pictures". Like him, she is looking for that auspicious beginning. Alaska won't look that way "after the great thaw" he tells her. The scenes in his family's house touch greatness. If the film is not quite a masterpiece its because the director, Bob Rafelson, doesn't spend enough time on those severed relationships. Then again, Dupea never did either.

Five Easy Pieces was nominated for several Oscars in 1970, losing to the overrated Patton. It does not tell a smooth story, nor does it provide easy answers, or infact answers period. And because of that realism, it is more affecting then most films. Equally as important is that it has a bonafide great movie performance by Jack Nicholson. Five years later he would win an Oscar for Cuckoos Nest, playing an anti-establishment force of nature. But its reflective performances in films like Five Easy Pieces and Ironweed that impress me most. Here he plays a man who, for years, has been travelling in circles and has just come to realise that. The lyrics of a Springsteen song best describe this character: "It's a sad man my friend who's livin' in his own skin, and can't stand the company."

Two of Jack Nicholson's best ever tantrum scenes
If you've seen this movie, you probably know what I'm talking about. There's one scene in which Nicholson REALLY doesn't want to invite his ditsy girlfriend (Karen Black) to come along to the family home to visit his dying father - and when he realizes he can't get out of it, he sits in his car and comes unglued. Then he get out, goes back inside and very calmly says, "Rayette, you wanna come with me?"
The other one is in a roadside café when the laconic waitress won't alter the menu selections by one jot - and again he comes unglued as only Nicholson can do when he's at the top of his performance, which he usually is.
But the rest of this movie is dark, dark, dark - a mood piece of a dysfunctional family. Nicholson plays a wounded outcast, a former piano prodigy who has been estranged from his father for years, spending his time as an oil worker in Texas, shacking up with his annoying girlfriend. When he learns his father is dying in Washington State, he sets off for 'home.' Most of the rest of the film is an odyssey, a road trip back to the family mansion and all he's left behind: his attachments, his family, his problems, his fears, and his failures.
Five Easy Pieces became a classic almost as soon as it was released. Don't miss it.

This is an extraordinary treat, to see a film I found outrageously funny 35 years ago and then find far more in it than I remembered. What is so fun about this is how unHollywood it is: the themes - disillusionment, losing one's moorings in the failure to rebuild an identity, the vast wasteland of middle Americana - appear far more mature to me than the junk we expect in threatres these days. Nicholson delivers a character so multi-facated, so complex in its ugliness and charm, that you see his potential as a great artist (in spite of Hollywood). THen there is Karen Black - remember that wonderful actress and beauty? - who delivers a brilliant performance as his pathetic mate. It is comic and tragic at the same time.

Highest recommendation. You can only find depth like this in that rare Indie film.