Five Easy Pieces reconsidered

 I’m not sure if I’ve seen Five Easy Pieces (Bob Rafelson, 1970) since the time it originally came out. But it was quite the film in its day and is still considered one of the seminal films of the era, and in American movies generally. Why it was one of the seminal films of the era had to do with what that era was all about – disillusionment with American consumer culture, the anti-establishment counterculture and the rise of social alienation in an IBM world where individuals no longer counted. Well, in Five Easy Pieces, Jack Nicholson as Bobby Dupea is Mister Alienation Plus. The film (screened recently on TCM) opens with him on a drill rig. He’s a good ol boy, or acting like one, and pals around with his jocular friend Elton (Billy "Green" Bush) whose life on and off the job is One Big Party. Bobby also has a girlfriend, Rayette (Karen Black), whom he at turns can’t stand and is embarrassed by. Rayette, a waitress, aspires to be a country and western singer. And she’s a bit of a ditz. Bobby is perpetually brooding. He doesn’t like his job, is sick of life with Rayette (who gets pregnant), and obviously wants something else - but what? One day the phone rings and he's told his father has had a stroke. This offers Bobby a chance to escape. And he almost does, but conscience tugs and he asks Rayette to go along. They pick up a couple of hippie hitchhikers, one of them a bizarre early eco type who incessantly complains about the “filth” in the world. "Alaska,” where she's headed, “is very clean.” They head north to Washington State where Bobby’s family lives. Along the way there is the iconic restaurant scene – epitomizing America’s so called unwavering consumer culture, where Bobby confronts a waitress who won’t give him the breakfast he wants. Later, Bobby dumps Rayette at a motel and drives to a bucolic island where his family’s grand house is. Turns out everyone in his family is cultured, including him, who once had the makings of a great pianist. There he meets Catherine (Susan Anspach), with whom he has sex, despite her being engaged to his brother. But Catherine soon wants no part of someone “who has no respect for himself.” The moody, angry Bobby continues in his meandering ways at this sour family reunion of sorts, and later, as the film goes on. Okay, I get the alienation part. But the film never explains why Bobby is as he is. And the problem with the film’s plot is that most of it sinks into a cul-de-sac of a soap opera at the family house. I didn’t really care. Nicholson was heralded for his performance. After having done another seminal film, Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper, 1969) the year before, with a similar theme, the accolades kept rolling in. But, for me, the best acting of the film was Black as Rayette, playing the unsophisticated rural gal to a T. And I was also pleasantly surprised to discover Lois Smith as Bobby’s sister Partita – a rather cute and endearing character. The last time I saw Smith was almost 50 years later as an octogenarian white haired mother in Michael Almereyda's 2017 Marjorie Prime!