A phenomena I’ve encountered while going through the films on the AFI list is encountering some movies I had watched at some earlier point in time, didn’t like, and had decided I would never see again, only to come face to face with it now. This is one of them.
Originally I saw it as a mess and I didn’t understand why it made the list. I mean I loved Nicholson, and I thought the trippy Mardi Gras scene was awesome, but other than that, it didn’t work for me. But now I’m seeing that although the themes didn’t quite resonate with me then, maybe I just needed Wyatt and Billy to break me out of my cell. Because watching it this time was a completely different ride.
Of course I’m talking about 1969’s Easy Rider, written by and directed by Dennis Hopper..
Outside of Society
A movie’s message is always a huge part of what makes it work, but this is even more the case when the movie is commenting on itself, as it then needs to embody its own message in order to be effective.
On the surface, the message of Sullivan’s Travels is simple: “comedy movies are great.”
And the movie lives up to it in the most simplistic form: it’s funny.
The movie, a product of the late 60’s, represented a message popular of the time but also true for any time: “we are on a constant journey to avoid conformity and be our true selves.”
Billy and Wyatt live this message, living free, freer than any of the other characters in the film, but still trying to acquire even more self-discovery. They both take names from cowboys, Billy the Kidd and Wyatt Earp respectively, but despite this, they feel a sense of unease and non-acceptance.
We are shown this right at the beginning, where two bikers could have looked down at the farmer and the seemingly squareness of his life, but were instead impressed by the freedom he possessed, getting to do whatever he wants whenever he wants.
The closest ally they find is George, a man who has mastered the conformed world (even wearing a suit to prison) but also yearning to escape it.
Even within the hippy commune they eventually land in, they face the demands of conformity. It might be conformity to hippy rules, but they’re rules all the same, and this is something I notice that happens a lot in counter-culture movements.
People are not happy with Billy and Wyatt’s non-conformity. The two are ridiculed throughout the movie, attacked and ultimately killed because of it.
I’m not sure how to take this–if this is a dark message, saying conformity is terrible, but the alternative is being outcast and killed (I know, dark AF), or if it’s more symbolic, showing them truly ascend society. I’ll go with sunshine and puppies over skulls and doom (and I’m a goth at heart), but to each their own.
The Trip
This movie falls under the road trip genre, an incredibly fun style because it always involves the characters moving from situation to situation and inhabiting many worlds throughout the movie, not to mention breathtaking scenic shots of wherever the characters are traveling.
This movie does have that, as the characters move from culture to culture, and at the same time it is a spiritual quest.
There are moments where they try to fit into the world but are cast away from it because they’re not playing by society’s rules. They’re clearly parading without a license!
But after George dies for who he is, they finally decide to go on their own internal journey and take the acid. This is when they go on true discovery and also go on the psychedelic journey which incidentally inspired every freshman film class final project for the next fifty years..
So with this movie, between seeing it then and now I’ve gone on my own journey.
Despite having even darker tastes when I originally saw it–being part of a subgroup that abhors conformity yet demands it’s own, much like the hippy commune–I couldn’t relate to these guys or their journey And I had no idea what was going on in a lot of the movie (ok, I still don’t).
But now, I do see the value of discovering myself more and being able to break free from all life’s “should”s, and how complex humans are that we crave both independence and collective identity, and who we can get lost in this struggle.
So I am glad this project made me come back to Easy Rider, and maybe when I watch it again years from now, Then I see where this journey goes next. We might be born to be wild, but sometimes we need a little time to discover what that wildness is like
Thanks for reading!
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