"The word 'easy rider' is used exclusively in the American South for men who live off their wives as chickens, no, not pimps, but those who live with whores because they ride on other people, Get away with it. Well, old man, that's what happened in America. The freedom thing has turned into a bitch, and we got to get along on her."
—Rolling Stone interview with Peter Fonda
September 6, 1969
"Easy Rider", as the originator of road films, was born in the 1960s when social movements were surging. Writer and actor Peter Fonda and director and actor Dennis Hopper use experiential performances and combine their own experiences to describe two young hippies riding motorcycles in traditional and corrupt American soil. The story delicately and profoundly reproduces the American hippie culture in the 1960s, and the Harley-Davidson motorcycle in the film has become a symbol of that era. Rock music, drug addiction, sexual liberation, "Easy Rider" is full of nostalgia, hesitation, unease, denial, and rebellion. The "rebellious youth" portrayed in the film has become a classic that cannot be surpassed in the future. To a certain extent, this is not only It is an art film, but also a documentary, that is, in the tone of the youth at that time, the image of the American hero was completely destroyed, and people woke up from the "American Dream", only to see the fragments of the dream scattered all over the place.
"If there is no God, create God".
As the "Beat Generation", the rebellious youths in the film drove across the east and west of the United States, wandering the streets of the vast plains of the American continent. The big city is the epitome and representative of the technologically advanced American industrial society, and the hippies in the film flee from the city one after another, which is the proof that they are "on the road".
The two protagonists in the film have been deliberately hidden by the director of their identity and social background. They are both false fugitives and free and brave seekers.
Similar to "The Male and Female Thief" and "Midnight Cowboy", the values and behaviors of the protagonists highlight the resistance, violence and anger of the youth in the 1960s. Their rebellion is reflected in their anti-system and rejection of "mediocreity", which is contrary to their parents. , looking for a new spiritual home. However, their desire for freedom was despised, crushed, and crushed again and again by the defenders. As the lawyer played by Jack Nicholson in "Easy Rider" put it: "They're not afraid of you, they're afraid of what you stand for." "You stand for freedom . . . Talking about it and realizing it are two different things. , true freedom is hard, especially when you're being bought and sold in the marketplace, so don't tell people you're not free, they'll prove you wrong by killing and doing evil." So we see, At the beginning of the journey of these films, "Like our legendary forerunners, the earth promises freedom", but as the journey draws to a close, everything turns the other way, "Dreams fail to fulfill, the earth fails to fulfill its promise, greatness The American 'Odyssey Tour' now leads only to death and disillusionment". They can neither go back to the Garden of Eden, nor to Utopia. At the end of the film, the two protagonists are inexplicably killed by the truck driver's gun. Although their deaths may seem worthless and absurd, just like the "explosive" sound that mixes rock and natural sound, it represents the pursuit of personal value and freedom, which still echoes in the history of film.
"The only people I associate with are crazy people who live for madness, talk about madness, and madly seek to be saved; they speak amazing words, act weird, always burn, burn, like the legendary Vigorous and fragile like a Roman candle with a dim blue glow."
- Jack Kerouac
Hippie culture seems to be fruitless, but it has had an inestimable impact on American culture, especially in literature, film and television, music, painting and so on. And when we watch "Easy Rider" today, when we hear "Born to be Wild" by the "Steppenwolf" band at the beginning of the film, the blood will still boil, and the sound of Harley-Davidson will still be activated. Get our adrenaline pumping. Just like at the end of the film, although everything is due to the raging fire, what is burning is still the inextinguishable spirit and will.
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