Environmental Symbolism: The film starts in the open landscape of the south west USA.Downer Ending: The film ends with a textbook example of Diabolus ex Machina when Wyatt and Billy are killed by a group of rednecks just when they decide to leave the drug business behind and live a life of luxury.Diabolus ex Machina: Our heroes are about to embark to Florida to start their life of luxury, and then, some rednecks shoot them.Deep South: Portrayed as xenophobic and violent.Cult Soundtrack: One of the first rock-based soundtracks, including songs by Steppenwolf ("Born to Be Wild", "The Pusher), The Band ("The Weight"), The Byrds ("Wasn't Born to Follow"), Jimi Hendrix ("If 6 Was 9"), and Roger McGuinn (" Ballad of Easy Rider").Conspiracy Theorist: George Hanson is fairly certain that aliens already live amongst us, and that they are not revealed by our government because of the general panic that would ensue.Both this and Billy's more conservative chopper started life as Harley Davidson Hydra Glides. Cool Bike: Possibly the best-known film motorcycle, Wyatt's "Captain America" chopper.The Cameo: Captain America and Billy sell their cocaine to none other than Phil Spector.Blade-of-Grass Cut: Many of the shots during musical sequences.It's the Good Ol Boys who are the ruffians. The bikers are harmless hippies who just want to find the American dream. The local men sitting around one table are openly hostile, but the teenage girls sitting around another table think them to be rather dreamy. All Girls Want Bad Boys: Hippy bikers count as bad boys in The Deep South.The two main characters are chopper-riding hippies who travel into the Deep South and run tragically afoul of violent Good Ol Boys. All Bikers Are Hell's Angels: Averted.As they ride along, they wonder what ever happened to America. Only one man, liberal lawyer George Hanson (Nicholson), shares their sense of freedom. They have no aim other than going to Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and pure freedom, which is not appreciated by the locals they encounter. It follows the tale of two dope-dealing bikers, Wyatt aka "Captain America" (Fonda) and Billy (Hopper), who decide to take their bikes across the country. It was also co-produced by the same guys responsible for The Monkees and Head. Since its release, it's been identified as THE Sixties counterculture film. It starred Hopper, co-writer and producer Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson in his first Academy Award-nominated role. In the end, the ride fills the screen and memory more than the destination.Easy Rider is a 1969 film directed and co-written by Dennis Hopper. Who cares about the plot and meaning of it all. They simply want to ride, to fly, until they die. In that way, it is a wonderful expression of a youth culture dissatisfied with the ‘promises’ and ‘purposes’ of life as it had been taught to them. It’s value lies almost completely in what it has meant in time and not in its actual plot or story. It isn’t doing anything else terribly interesting as a story. That being said, the film is a little slow for my taste.
Their dialogue isn’t the product of some Hollywood producer guessing what young people talk like these days. The intimacy that this creates is surely one of the draws of the film. When a character says how they are feeling It’s not just the character that feels that way. I watch it and feel that I am getting to know how these guys actually feel.
In many ways the film feels more like a documentary than a film. There aren’t a ton of twist and turns, no big plot moments, and the characters, such as they are, are less characters and more alter egos of Hopper (“ Blue Velvet”) and Fonda. Just a couple of dudes riding cross country on motorcycles, getting high and meeting new people along the way. The thing that strikes me most as I watch "Easy Rider” is how simple of a concept it is.
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