easy rider: a pursuit of American identity Essay -- essays research pa

Easy Rider: An Epic journey into the unknown For the American dream Easy Rider is the late 1960s "road film" tale of a search for freedom (or the illusion of freedom) and an identity in America, in the midst of paranoia, bigotry and violence. The story, of filmmakers' Fonda/Hopper creation, centers around the self-styled, counter-cultured, neo-frontiersmen of the painfully fashionable late 60s. As for the meaning of Easy rider, Peter Fonda (Wyatt) said in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine,  ¡Ã‚ §it is a southern term for a whore ¡Ã‚ ¦s old man, not a pimp, but a dude who lives with a chick. Because he ¡Ã‚ ¦s got the easy ride. Well, that ¡Ã‚ ¦s what ¡Ã‚ ¦s happened to America, man. Liberty ¡Ã‚ ¦s become a whore, and we ¡Ã‚ ¦re all taking an easy ride ¡Ã‚ ¨ . However, their journey is far from an easy ride; it is a unsettling, frightening and revealing experience rounded up in self-destruction. Introduction to Easy Rider (1969) Easy Rider is a counter-cultural, experimental, independent film for the alternative youth/cult market, with sex, drugs, casual violence, reflecting the collapse of the idealistic 60s. The film does not have a clear plot, and its artistic merit is also doubtful, as a film critic Peter Biskind said,  ¡Ã‚ §It had little background or historical development of characters, a lack of typical heroes, uneven pacing, jump cuts and flash-forward transitions between scenes, an improvisational style and mood of acting and dialogue, background rock 'n' roll music to complement the narrative, and the equation of motorbikes with freedom on the road rather than with delinquent behaviors. ¡Ã‚ ¨ However, it presents an image of the popular and historical culture of the time and a story of a contemporary but destructive journey by two self-righteous, drug-fueled, anti-hero bikers eastward through the American Southwest. Their trip to Mardi Gras in New Orleans takes them through limitless, untouched landscapes including Monument Valley, various towns, a hippie commune, and a graveyard. However, they inevitably encountered local residents who are narrow-minded and hateful of their long-haired freedom and use of drugs. Extremely successful and low-budget, this film has won the 1969 Cannes Film Festival ¡Ã‚ ¦s award for the Best Film by a new director. The film also received two Academy Award nominations: Best Original Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor for Jack Nicholson in ... ...ay ¡Ã‚ ¨, but instead of peace and enlightenment, they experienced confusion and disillusion. At the end of the movie, the two protagonists experience hallucinatory emotions, where we can see intense colors, kaleidoscopic swirls, and distorted shapes and forms. They search for enlightenment, while inveighing agsint civilization ¡Ã‚ ¦s hypocrisy and brutality. Their rootless, drifting pursuit of the American dream and the promise of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll has been questionably successful, dissatisfying, transitory and elusive. Wyatt believes there may have been another less destructive, less diversionary, more spiritually fulfilling way to search for their freedom rather than selling hard drugs, taking to the road and being sidetracked, and wasting their lives. ƒÞ For all its counter cultural reflections, the movie does not portray the youthful movement uncritically, rather it provides an ambiguous ending, implying that excesses, even counter cultural ones, can be harmful and destructive. David Hopper also defines this film as anti-counter cultural. The romance and dream of the American highway is turned menacing and deadly ¡XThey looked for America but couldn ¡Ã‚ ¦t find it anywhere.