“This used to be a helluva good country. I can't understand what's gone wrong with it."

“Man, everybody got chicken, that's what happened. Hey, we can't even get into like, a second-rate hotel, I mean, a second-rate motel, you dig? They think we're gonna cut their throat or somethin'. They're scared, man.”

“They're not scared of you. They're scared of what you represent to 'em.”

“Hey, man. All we represent to them, man, is somebody who needs a haircut.”

“Oh, no. What you represent to them is freedom.”

“What the hell is wrong with freedom? That's what it's all about.”

“Oh, yeah, that's right. That's what's it's all about, all right. But talkin' about it and bein' it, that's two…

I hate this expression but in this case it happens to be the truth: Time has not been kind to Easy Rider. So much of its aesthetic, its depiction of freedom and adventure, even specific shots of our two heroes flying down the road on their motorcycles, have become fodder for commercials for banks and life insurance. But what the commercials miss is the heavy cloud of doom, gloom, and fatalism that hangs over almost every scene, with the possible exception of the one featuring Jack Nicholson as straight man to Peter Fonda's world's most laconic marijuana infomercial host.

Unfortunately, even though there are now 45 years of progress standing between us and Easy Rider, it's still the pessimism that…

A sweeping portrait of the American landscape through the eyes of two 60's counterculturists, Dennis Hopper's Easy Rider is a gorgeous ode to the open freedom of the American way. It's the ultimate road trip film, simultaneously developing its two protagonists and the characters they meet while intermittent segments of folk rock play backstage to colorful shots of the western countryside. Hopper displays an appreciation for the simple lifestyle that many Americans represent, from the mild-mannered farmer to the typical small town residents. The hippie movement that dominated the 60's thought process is also observed here, offering a fascinating inside look at a culture of peace, love, and a ton of unidentified substances.

The counterculturist movement of the 60's played…

(...) EASY RIDER is a film about America. EASY RIDER is a film mainly in long shots. EASY RIDER is a political film. (...) EASY RIDER begins with the music of Steppenwolf. Born to Be Wild. The Pusher. (...) A motorbike ride from Los Angeles to New Orleans, that's the story of this film. A story of long empty roads, of empty petrol stations, of Monument Valley, of suburbs where the advertisements on the roofs are twice as high as the houses below. (...) The story of this film is also the story of the music that accompanies it: ten familiar folk and rock pieces, all released on record before the film. They do not simply illustrate the images of…

It’s interesting that something that was once held as being deeply counter cultural and radical now feels so banal. This film is, to be honest, deeply tiresome. It has no energy, momentum or reality and, now that we have its influence, we should just leave it alone.

Regarding its counter cultural status, this doesn’t hold true at all. The film has nothing to say and only deals in vagueness: limiting itself to comments about how the country isn’t how it was and comments about avoiding the man. Yea, but why, what does any of this mean? Not actually articulating any counter, or a reason for a counter, makes this at best a-cultural.

However, it is founded on archetypes and conservative…