Five Easy Pieces [1970]

Five Easy Pieces is in many ways a comparatively lesser hallowed and more sedate version of Easy Rider. Like the latter, this wonderful road movie strongly propounded the themes of moral detachment, spiritual emancipation and strong anti-establishmentarian sentiments. And along with Easy Rider, Chinatown and One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, it firmly established Jack Nicholson as the most distinctive spokeperson of a generation drenched in angst, urban alienation, disillusionment and rebelliousness. Directed by Bob Rafelson, Nicholson plays the role of Bobby Dupea, who is yet to find his place in the world and lives his life without any strings attached, as a proletariat, to flee from his suffocating bourgeois past, even though he was born in an affluent family and was a great musician in the making. The concoction of fast tracks, classical Western music and long moments of silence, coupled with the languid cinematography filled with realism, made this one of the finest movies of the turbulent Vietnam War era. And as for the brilliant Jack Nicholson, who provided a restrained and nuanced performance (in complete contrast to the volatile and dynamic roles he is generally associated with) as a loner and a reluctant intellectual at odds with the world around him and a quintessential archetype of Bob Dylan's iconic pronouncement “No Direction Home” – the less said about him is better lest I start speaking in clichés and hyperboles.





Director: Bob Rafelson
Genre: Drama/Road Movie/Psychological Drama//Existential Drama/Family Drama/Anti-Establishmentarian Movie
Language: English
Country: US