America, in the midst of paranoia, bigotry and
violence. Released in the year of the Woodstock concert, and made in a year of
two tragic assassinations (Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King), the Vietnam
War buildup and Nixon's election, the tone of this 'alternative' film is
remarkably downbeat and bleak, reflecting the collapse of the idealistic 60s. Easy Rider, one of the first films of its kind, was a ritualistic experience
and viewed (often repeatedly) by youthful audiences in the late 1960s as a
reflection of their realistic hopes of liberation and fears of the
Establishment.
The iconographic,
'buddy' film, actually minimal in terms of its artistic merit and plot, is both
memorialized as an image of the popular and historical culture of the time and
a story of a contemporary but apocalyptic journey by two self-righteous,
drug-fueled, anti-hero (or outlaw) bikers eastward through the American
Southwest. Their trip to, but also through areas where local residents are
increasingly narrow-minded and hateful of their long-haired freedom and use of
drugs. The film's title refers to their rootlessness and ride to make
"easy" money; it is also slang for a pimp who makes his livelihood
off the earnings of a prostitute. However, the film's original title was The Loners.
The names of the two
main characters, Wyatt and Billy, suggest the two memorable Western outlaws
Wyatt Earp and Billy the Kid - or 'Wild Bill' Hickcock. Rather than traveling
westward on horses as the frontiersmen did, the two modern-day cowboys travel
eastward from Los Angeles - the end of the traditional frontier - on decorated
Harley-Davidson choppers on an epic journey into the unknown for the 'American
dream'.
A man went looking for
America and couldn't find it anywhere.
Their costumes combine
traditional patriotic symbols with emblems of loneliness, criminality and
alienation - the American flag, cowboy decorations, long-hair, and drugs.
We Go
Way Too Fast
We Go
Way Too Fast
We Go
Way Too Fast
A few motorcyclists just read that heading and
thought something like
-...this: All of us -- every human being alive today --
are traveling way, way faster than we have any right to.