By: Myles Burke / BBC
Translation: Telegrafi.com

On October 17, 1969, the film Easy Rider burst onto cinema screens through a psychedelic haze. Interspersed with rock music, free love, and drug use, this low-budget travelogue captured the spirit of the counterculture of the late 60s, as well as the social tensions simmering in the United States. of America.

The film tells the story of two free-spirited bikers: mustachioed hippie Billy, played by the film's director, Dennis Hopper, and leather-clad Wyatt, played by the film's producer, Peter Fonda. Easy Rider begins with Billy and Wyatt smuggling cocaine from Mexico to sell to a drug dealer in Los Angeles, played by renowned music producer Phil Spector (whose performance seems all the more grim in light of his conviction for murder in 2009). The two, now with a lot of money, decide to travel by motorcycle across the USA to New Orleans, to make it in time for the Mardi Gras [festival].

During their odyssey across the vast American landscape, to the sound of song Born to Be Wild of Steppenwolf, they encounter characters who embody some of the conflicting worldviews prevalent in the United States at the time, from an alcoholic civil rights lawyer (played by Jack Nicholson) to a corrupt sheriff, from a hippie commune to small-town prejudiced people. The filmmakers create a portrait of a changing country. The slogan on the film's posters was: "A man looked for America. And he couldn't find it anywhere..."!

A month before the premiere Easy Rider-Item in 1969, Hopper gave an interview on the program Line Up of the BBC with Philip Jenkinson. Dressed in clothes similar to those of his character Billy, Hopper's interview was as intriguing, messy and at times as confusing as the cult film he had just made.

He explained to the BBC that he wanted to "basically make a film about what was happening in America at that moment". The 60s were a tumultuous period for the US, as the country underwent rapid and significant cultural upheaval. The decade witnessed the civil rights movement, growing anti-war protests - as the Vietnam War escalated - and a series of shocking assassinations of political figures such as John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.

The generation gap seemed to be widening. Many of the baby boomers had embraced new music and culture, experimenting with drugs and sex, and often openly rejecting the more traditional values ​​and material concepts of their parents. Hopper felt that nothing in the cinema directly addressed these young people. There was nothing that showed their hopes and fears, the way they wanted to live, and how those aspirations had created deep divisions in American society. He told the BBC in 1969 that he had not seen a single film "that made a social commentary on what was going on".

"Yes, [studios] make movies about the [American] Civil War, they make them about slavery or the Korean War, but, I mean, something that was really happening at the time. Very few people were making a movie about that, especially in Hollywood."

Easy Rider it was not unusual only for the subject it dealt with, but also for the chaotic and innovative way of making the film. With a limited production budget of only $400 Columbia Pictures — which at times meant Fonda had to pay the crew out of his own pocket — the production followed a DIY (do it yourself) approach. A central element to the film's narrative was the idea of ​​the road as a symbol of freedom and opportunity. Hopper sought to capture footage of Billy and Wyatt riding their motorcycles along a seemingly endless highway. This type of filming was usually done by renting a truck equipped with a camera and radio. Instead, the filmmakers purchased a [car] Chevrolet Impala of 1968, with an open top, planning to sell it later to recoup some of the costs. Cinematographer László Kovács placed a camera in the back of the car, securing it with planks and sandbags, while he sat in the back seat to film Fonda and Hopper riding the motorbikes Harley-Davidson on the open road, using hand signals to communicate what they needed to do. The production also saved money by shooting on location instead of building expensive studio sets, and by shooting in natural light with hand-held cameras, giving the film the feel of unfiltered authenticity.

However, the film's production process was far from smooth, largely due to Hopper's explosive temper. He admitted to the BBC in 1969 that he had been ostracized by Hollywood for his tendency to argue with directors. "I only followed instructions when I respected the person," he said. "If I didn't respect him, and most of the time I didn't, I didn't follow the instructions." Now, for the first time, he was the director himself, and he ended up fighting for control over every aspect of the filmmaking process. At one point, he got into a physical altercation with a camera operator who refused to hand over footage he had shot.

This was not the only clash the director had during filming. Actor Rip Torn was originally cast to play the role that would later be played by Nicholson, but he left a few weeks into filming after an argument with Hopper. In 1994, Torn successfully sued Hopper for defamation when the director claimed that the actor had pointed a knife at him during an argument—while Torn maintained otherwise. In an interview with Jenkinson, Hopper admitted that he was "difficult to work with." Fonda described him more directly when speaking to the BBC's Will Gompertz in 2014: "Hopper was a kind of megalomaniac."

However, Hopper took his craft seriously and was committed to his vision. He told the BBC that he was "trained in method acting" and "not to have preconceived ideas" about how a scene should unfold. When he worked with James Dean as a young actor in Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Giant (1956), Dean told him, "Don't act like you're smoking, just drink." Hopper took this advice to heart. To bring realism and spontaneity to this counterculture tale, he—along with Fonda and Nicholson—consumed copious amounts of drugs and alcohol during the filming of the film. The scenes were directed in a documentary style, with the actors—often high or drunk—improvising scenes and dialogue.

Nicholson told the magazine Time in 1970 that he had "smoked about 155 [marijuana] joints" while filming a multiple-shot scene in which two bikers introduce marijuana to his character, George. The real acting challenge for him was remembering, after all those joints, to play George as if he was sober at the beginning of the scene. "To remember all that while being high, to play the scene as sober and then get high — it was fantastic," he said.

Filmmakers made the most of the lifting of the Heiss Code [for self-censorship] in 1968. Hollywood's self-imposed guidelines had banned, among other things, profanity, nudity, realistic violence and drug use. When the Code was replaced with the MPAA rating system, Easy Rider took advantage of this new freedom, and its open, nonjudgmental portrayal of drug use helped make the film a cause celebre (famous issue) since the premiere. Hopper defended drug use in a BBC interview, saying that "it would be unrealistic for these two guys in America not to be smoking marijuana" and claimed that their cocaine trafficking was no more immoral than other capitalist ways of making money. "Maybe we're all involved in criminal acts of one kind or another," he said.

dhe Easy Rider does not attempt to portray the bikers as heroes or necessarily good people, but simply as a reflection of America. "I think they're only as good as their leaders, right? I think the people are only as good as their leaders," Hopper said. The film, at times, presents a deeply disturbing image of the United States in which its protagonists live. It makes clear the open hostility and brutal violence that individuals who are seen as outsiders can face.

But the way Billy and Wyatt dressed, their disillusionment with the values ​​of the system, and their search for identity and purpose in life struck a chord with many young Americans. So did the rock 'n' roll soundtrack, which managed to capture the turbulent spirit of the time. Songs by Jimi Hendrix, The Byrds, The Band and others were originally just music that the filmmakers liked. They were only meant to serve as stand-ins while Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young were working on an actual soundtrack. But, Easy Rider ended up being edited to these songs, causing a large portion of the film's final budget to be used for the rights to use them.

Although initially shown only in one theater in New York, Easy Rider resonated with young Americans, quickly becoming a critical and commercial success. Hopper won the First Film Award at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival, while Nicholson and the screenplay were nominated for Academy Awards. The film would go on to earn more than $60 million worldwide.

Hollywood was taken aback by the sudden popularity of a film made on a minimal budget and outside the studio system. The success of Easy Rider, at the box office, helped usher in an era where studios gave young directors, such as Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and Steven Spielberg, more creative control and freedom to experiment. These directors would later define the American cinema of the 70s.

Hopper himself was surprised by this new acceptance from a Hollywood that had previously rejected him. “It’s like being on a rubber band. You run so far and they pull you back in, and suddenly you’re in the middle and surrounded by the establishment,” he said. But he remained cynical about his status. “They congratulate you, they love you, they pull you into their fold. That is until you’re no longer useful to them, and then they throw you away again.” /Telegraph/

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