Easy Rider - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Overview

Easy Rider is a 1969 American road movie

Road movie

A road movie is a film genre in which the main character or characters leave home to travel from place to place. They usually leave home to escape their current lives.-History:...

written by Peter Fonda

Peter Fonda

Peter Henry Fonda is an American actor. He is the son of Henry Fonda, brother of Jane Fonda, and father of Bridget and Justin Fonda...

, Dennis Hopper

Dennis Hopper

Dennis Lee Hopper was an American actor, filmmaker and artist. As a young man, Hopper became interested in acting and eventually became a student of the Actors' Studio. He made his first television appearance in 1954 and appeared in two films featuring James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant...

, and Terry Southern

Terry Southern

Terry Southern was an American author, essayist, screenwriter and university lecturer, noted for his distinctive satirical style...

, produced by Fonda and directed by Hopper. It tells the story of two biker

Motorcycling

Motorcycling is the act of riding a motorcycle. A variety of subcultures and lifestyles have been built up around motorcycling.-Benefits:Robert M. Pirsig's book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was a paean celebrating motorcycling...

s (played by Fonda and Hopper) who travel through the American Southwest and South

Southern United States

The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...

with the aim of achieving freedom

Individualism

Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that stresses "the moral worth of the individual". Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and so value independence and self-reliance while opposing most external interference upon one's own...

. The success of Easy Rider helped spark the New Hollywood

New Hollywood

New Hollywood or post-classical Hollywood, sometimes referred to as the "American New Wave", refers to the time from roughly the late-1960s to the early 1980s when a new generation of young filmmakers came to prominence in America, influencing the types of films produced, their production and...

phase of filmmaking during the late sixties. The film was added to the Library of Congress National Registry

National Film Registry

The National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...

in 1998.

A landmark counterculture

Counterculture of the 1960s

The counterculture of the 1960s refers to a cultural movement that mainly developed in the United States and spread throughout much of the western world between 1960 and 1973. The movement gained momentum during the U.S. government's extensive military intervention in Vietnam...

film, and a "touchstone for a generation" that "captured the national imagination," Easy Rider explores the societal landscape, issues, and tensions in the United States during the 1960s, such as the rise and fall of the hippie

Hippie

The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...

movement, drug use

Recreational drug use

Recreational drug use is the use of a drug, usually psychoactive, with the intention of creating or enhancing recreational experience. Such use is controversial, however, often being considered to be also drug abuse, and it is often illegal...

, and communal

Commune (intentional community)

A commune is an intentional community of people living together, sharing common interests, property, possessions, resources, and, in some communes, work and income. In addition to the communal economy, consensus decision-making, non-hierarchical structures and ecological living have become...

lifestyle.
Easy Rider is famous for its use of real drugs in its portrayal of marijuana and other substances.
The protagonists are two freewheeling hippies: Wyatt (Fonda), nicknamed "Captain America", and Billy (Hopper).

Unanswered Questions

What is the explanation about George's words to Billy while the were camping?

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Quotations

No, I mean it. You've got a nice place. It's not every man that can live off the land, you know. You do your own thing in your own time. You should be proud.

[reading inscription] "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him."

[while tripping on LSD] Oh Mother why didn't you tell me? Why didn't anybody tell me anything?...What are you doing to me now?...Shut up!...How could you make me hate you so?...Oh God, I hate you so much.

Whew. Man, look, I gotta get out of here, man. Now we - we got things we want to do, man, like - I just - uh - I gotta get out of here, man.

You gotta be kidding. I mean, you know who this is, man? This is Captain America. I'm Billy. Hey, we're headliners baby. We played every fair in this part of the country. I mean, for top dollar, too!

[about marijuana] It gives you a whole new way of looking at the day.

Well, you boys don't look like you're from this part of the country. You're lucky I'm here to see that you don't get into anything...Well, they got this here - see - uh - scissor-happy 'Beautify America' thing goin' on around here. They're tryin' to make everybody look like Yul Brynner. They used - uh - rusty razor blades on the last two long-hairs that they brought in here and I wasn't here to protect them. You see - uh - I'm - uh - I'm a lawyer. Done a lot of work for the A.C.L.U.

You can get out of here, if you haven't killed anybody - at least nobody white.

[to guard] Very groovy. Very groovy. See there. I bet nobody ever said that to you.

Here's to the first of the day, fellas. To ol' D. H. Lawrence. Nik-nik-nik-f-f-f-Indians!

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