Ahhh, Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Steppenwolf, what could be more reminiscent of the end of the 60′s? To tell the truth, Easy Rider is not one of my favorite films. I find it overlong and self-indulgent. But 40 years after its release, it seems to be finding new respectability. A good chunk of the movie was filmed and took place in New Mexico. The town of Taos had a 40 year anniversary celebration for the film this year. Kind of odd when you consider that Taos wasn’t very happy about the film in 1969, and the New Buffalo commune, near Taos where some of the action was supposed to take place, wouldn’t let them film there. But these days Taos is no longer an artist colony or hippie magnet but a tourist destination. And anything that might draw a few free-spending tourists is considered good business.
That opening credit sequence, where we watch Billy and Wyatt (Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda) ride out of Death Valley, across the Colorado river through Needles and Kingman on their way to Flagstaff with the Steppenwolf song ‘Born to be Wild‘ playing is pretty powerful. Even though the song and sequence has become an ironic cliche (see Albert Brooks’ Lost in America) it still is a great piece of film. The credit for the beauty and power of that sequence belongs to cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs. I still get a little shiver when I watch that sequence. Forty years on, I still don’t think I’ll add Easy Rider to my favorites list, but this sour, downbeat road film is worth watching and has aged better than a lot of the films of its generation..
When you watched the opening credits did you notice the third name of the ‘starring’ actors? Of course Fonda and Hopper got ‘above the title’ billing, but then the other principal actors were listed in alphabetical order. They included Karen Black and Jack Nicholson in his ‘breakout’ role. But that third name is Toni Basil. You remember her don’t you?? If you don’t, watch this!
There is an interesting article on Salon.com by Keith Phipps, who recreated the road trip of Easy Rider this year. It has a lot of trivia about the film. You might also be interested in checking out Peter Biskind’s book Easy Riders Raging Bulls. There was also a documentary film made from the book that screened on some cable channel recently. I thought it was on IFC, but couldn’t find it there.
