AN "EASY" ANALYSIS OF EASY RIDER (1969): the film that defined the 1960s
After scoring a drug deal in Los Angeles, 2 hippie bikers with a gas-tank full of money travel cross-country to Mardi Gras. Their ride starts in the Southwest where they see the American Dream in a man and his family living off the land and a weed-smoking commune, disconnected from modern civilization. Their ride, the American Dream, and the hippie movement ends violently in the Deep South:
"They talk to you about individual freedom, if they see a free individual, it's gonna scare 'em."
"Well, I don't make them runnin' scared."
"No, it makes 'em dangerous!"
This low-budget 1969 road film written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Terry Southern won "Best Film By A New Director" at Cannes for Dennis Hopper, a film based on 60's counterculture that attained cult status by defining its period in the same way that Saturday Night Fever defined Disco in the 70's. This is a deceptively intelligent and well-thought out film that Peter Fonda imagined as an American Western with motorcycles, shot on a budget of $360,000.00 and going on to earn over $60,000,000.00!
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