Believe it or not I was lucky enough to study this one at uni along with Thelma and Louise and Shane. I lapped up every minute of Easy Rider, of course there is very little plot, but that is not the reason you watch it. The stylised late sixties 'acid induced' camera work, fabulous sound track and wonderful male leads is a testament that even when people are doped to the eye balls some stories are begging to be told. This film was so of its time - almost like the foretelling of the autumn and winter of the 'Summer of Love' when the warm fluffy ideaologies where crumbling and decaying and the establishment where again ascertaining their will.
Dennis Hopper is so wonderful in this he holds the screen. His maniac/OCD behaviour is a foretaste of many of the great characters he portrayed in the 70's, but also a stern reminder of his own personal descent, that thankfully now he has overcome. Of course like many films of this time and even now the females are just window dressing. It does frustrate me a bit because I like many of my contemporaries imagine myself on a big Harley cruising through the landscape, any way 'the times they are a changing' and some day I hope we will see more strong, sassy and beautiful women on the screen.

The best part of this DVD is the bonus "Making of Easy Rider" documentary. It unintentionally helps to deflate all the current bloated ideas about the significance of this movie. Take this movie for what it is: a film with two hippies enjoying freedom by riding cool bikes through beautiful scenery with cool music. Add to it some good acting by Jack Nicholson (which offsets Peter Fonda's atrocious acting) and some fairly good documentation of the zeitgeist, and it's certainly worth 90 minutes of your time. But don't look to this as a profound comment on life and society, because it's too mixed up and/or lightweight.

Why was it mixed up? Partially because everyone except the cinematographer was stoned all the time, including the director Dennis Hopper. No one was really in charge. Everyone had big ideas for how things should go, more than half the dialogue was improvised, and lots of other things were determined on the fly as well (after huge arguments). The funniest revelation in the "Making Of" documentary was the fact that Hopper's original cut of the movie was three hours long! He apparently thought he was making a huge statement with this thing, but it really just shows his lack of directorial judgement and clear concept of what he was trying to accomplish.

There's a lot of silly, amateurish symbolism in the film: the scene where Peter Fonda throws off his watch, the simultaneous horseshoeing and motorcycle tire-fixing, the "Wyatt" and "Billy" cowboy stuff, etc. The "Making Of" documentary reveals that the guys thought they were packing the film with a lot of other symbolism as well, none of it very well done: the cemetary statue that Peter Fonda talks to is supposed to represent the Statue of Liberty; when the plastic tube full of drug money is being shoved inside Peter Fonda's Stars and Stripes gas tank, that's supposed to represent money screwing America; and so on.

When the guys producing/directing a film have no real focus, are making it up as they go along, have no self-editing abilities to begin with, then aggravate that problem by staying stoned all the time, it's expecting too much for there to be a coherent end product. What is the message of this movie anyway? There's probably a little morality tale in there somewhere, something along the lines of "freedom is good, prejudice is bad", but to read much more than that into it is to wander into a thicket of half-constructed themes that aren't very well thought out or presented.

So, don't take it too seriously. It's definitely better than the rest of the biker films of the era, because it doesn't rely on the scandalous antics of depraved Hell's Angels-types.

I can't help, but ask that question. I really wasn't that impressed with this movie. I feel that it really didn't explain what the 60's were all about. I feel that what it did was tell everyone "Party, and you'll be alright." It just didn't gel together enough for me as I feel that the 60's may have been just a complete waste of time. I know one scene that really gripped me was when the main characters go to this hippie commune, and we see a guy who's is obviously stoned out of his mind holding a little baby who's crying, and while it makes the guy disturbed he doesn't do anything about it; Let's face it to me what the father of that baby was wanting was to have someone take that baby away from him so he can get back to the free sex, and the drugs. You see I feel that the movie would've sold me better if it was more geared towards the values the people were trying to hold to back then. I know that the decade was about equality, and world peace, and how everybody wanted them so bad, but the movie looks more on the selfish side of the hippies. With the main characters scoring alot of money from a drug buy, and the carefree style of just traveling along the country without a care in the world. The only character I feel was worth something was played by Jack Nicholson. A lawyer who seemed so dissilousioned with the way things were that he joins Hopper and Fonda for awhile on the trip. I know that during this decade everyone was wondering what's going on? Was the way our parents raised us, and the values they tried to instill in us wrong? This is understandable considering everybody was starting to think more broader. I can't say if it was because of the drugs, or not that caused everyone to start challenging the values of thier parents, but that's where the movie should've been centered. I just can't help, but feel that Fonda's character was right "We Blew It." I know that's what happened with this movie here. A somewhat decent soundtrack, but it's not the masterpiece that everyone feels that it is. I know that this is tough stuff, but I've kept silent about it for 16 years, and it was time to release my feelings on this movie. I feel that it revealed to me that this hippie culture is one of self-indulgence, and escaping responsibilities. It's not about peace, or love. Now there is no resolution as the former hippies have gone on to represent the people they hated, and they've developed a callous attitude that the people they hated had, so what are we to believe? Are we to accept this on blind faith? Well some people may say yes as once again the movie left me feeling with one of the songs from the Blind Faith album "Do What You Like".

Easy Rider is not merely a modern-day cowboy film that sheds light on the countercultural changes that were occurring in the late sixties; it is a great work of art that asks some important questions about the human condition itself and as such contains universality of theme. And it does this by utilizing the various techniques of cinema in a highly innovative and expert fashion.

The outlaws are named Wyatt (Captain America) and Billy (The Kid)and they hark back to the days of the wild west when our country was built, upon the ideals of freedom and individuality--ideas that are dealt with creatively and expertly by the directors, writers and actors of this remarkable film.

The changes of the 1960s are cinematically drawn up in this film by writers Hopper, Southern and Fonda, by world-class director of photography Lazlo Kovaks and creatively directed by Hopper, who also plays the outlaw longhair Billy.

To say creatively directed is actually an understatement: the fact is, Easy Rider was the first known film to go beyond Method acting (and directing) and to create in its place a more highly evolved, naturalistic form of directing and acting--Hopper actually directed and "wrote" scenes between his character and Fonda's while the camera was already rolling--such as the initial campfire scene when he, the director, attempts to draw out the actor Fonda, while all the time remaining in his character (Billy.)In another campfire scene with the stranger-on-the highway, director Dennis Hopper works to move the dialogue in that scene along while also remaining in his own character; the utilization of ad-lib (like improvisation in theater)was extraordinarily fresh and it worked amazingly well. As a result of Hopper's success as a directer trying new methods (which was what the sixties was partly about, as well as looking to traditional cultures for enlightenment, as beautifully expressed for instance in the scene with the rancher (Warren Finnerty and Tito Colorado)a cinematic door was opened for later filmmakers to try using more ad-lib and other improvisational methods of directing actors.

Easy Rider was made during a time of great social, political and cultural upheaval, during a brief stage that revived some of the ideals of the pre-revolutionary French Englightenment.
Every anthropologist knows that Every culture has its own rituals, its sacraments, its holy ceremonies and so on. During the late sixties especially, young people began exploring some of the traditional cultures' medicines and rituals and made them their own, in a sense, or at least adapted some of them.
That is why the turning-on of the ACLU lawyer (Jack Nicholson)by the biker-cowboys Wyatt and Billy was absolutely necessary.
The gift (that is understood to be LSD) that the stranger solemnly gives the two as a sacred substance when they part ways at the commune is another aspect of that theme.
Some of the questions raised by Hopper, Fonda, Southern (and Nicholson) probably will not be answered by anyone for a long, long time, but the important thing is that they were asked. I highly recommend this film for anyone interested in the history of cinema and aesthetics, the evolution of film directing/acting, the sixties, American history and universal themes of freedom and individuality VS License or licentiousness and what it means to be a successful human being in society that has yet to evolve into one that is truly livable for human beings, fellow creatures and nature itself.


The DVD I own has an excellent voice-over narration option by director Dennis Hopper, who does an incredible job of explaining what Easy Rider is about and how it was made. In this piece Hopper describes the art films he was influenced by as well as the cultural and political setting in which he came of age, and so on. Another special feature has some passages by photography directer Kovaks that are unusually moving, as well as much much more. Suffice it to say that this is a wonderful film, a work of fine art and vitally important as a piece of history that should be in everyone's personal film library along with Bunuel's Un Chien Andalou, Antonioni's La Avventura, Bergman's Wild Strawberry's, Fellini's 81/2 and Truffaut's 400 Blows.

_Easy Rider_ is, of course, one of the most important pioneer independent films of the 1960s film movement. It is the classic biker flick: two guys traveling across the Southwest United States searching for themselves and this country. Thus, I have a hesitant recommendation. Few other films that I have seen capture this time period with such accuracy, vision, and emotional power. However, if you're not into "road trip" movies of the 1960s and 1970s, you might be bored by the film's spontaneous dialogue and long visual riding sequences set to great music.

This film reminded me, in many ways, of the movie _Vanishing Point_, most likely because that film came out two years after _Easy Rider_. Both depict a lost generation, endlessly searching for something that isn't there, only to be sacrificed for their journey. The acting in this film is terrific and the meaninglessness of the film's ending is heartbreaking for those audience members who desperately seek to find the same thing that these two free spirits are searching for.

I found the "Making of" featurette on this DVD edition to be very informative and really well done. In fact, it is one of the better featurettes I have seen. Hopper and Fonda (among others) take us behind the scenes into the magical making of this film and how it all just seemed to flow naturally, largely unscripted. A word to the wise: you might want to check out the 35th anniversary edition. While I have heard that the quality of the DVD is not improved, there is a soundtrack CD and a nice booklet for any true fan of the film. Otherwise, you'll do just fine with this cheaper version.