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Jack Nicholson was the poster boy of the angry, angst-ridden dramas of the late 60s and early 70s. Easy Rider, One Flew Over the Cuckoo s Nest, Hell s Angels on Wheels (you can tell I m reaching) and Five Easy Pieces, generally hailed as one of the best films ever made. I didn t see it as such, although Nicholson does an excellent job and the movie is host to a few of the most memorable scenes ever, such as the sequence where Nicholson tries to order chicken salad sandwich in a diner ("I want you to hold it between your knees!") and the earlier scene where he jumps out of his car during a traffic jam and plays a piano tied to the back of a truck. Pianos and piano playing figure big in Five Easy Pieces. Nicholson s character, we eventually learn, is viewed as the one failure in a family full of musical maestros. Nicholson had lessons forced on him all through his formative years and became a great musician, but since he identified it with the family, he left it all behind, taking a series of menial jobs and meaningless affairs with women. When we first see him, he is working as an oil field rigger with his friend Elton (Billy Green Bush), who is arrested not soon after. His girlfriend Rayette (Karen Black) is a waitress who clings to him as her own personal life s meaning. She s destined to have her heart broken again and again when he treats her shabbily, but has nothing else to live for, really. The film explores these ideas of lower-middle class emptiness, people eeking out a life of boring bowling, beers and TV not because they necessarily want to but because there s nothing better to do. Five Easy Pieces almost defies genre -- it s part epic, focusing on the partially aimless life s journey of someone trying to find himself; part road picture, when Nicholson takes Black with him to see his dying father; and part character study, as we interpret Nicholson s actions and dialogue. It s a powerful film, yes, but seems too much wrapped in a shroud of hippie malaise when viewed today. You want to slap a few of these people and tell Jack to get over himself. Still, Five Easy Pieces is recommended viewing for the Nicholson fan and the Karen Black fan, if there are any.Read full review
This 1970 movie is a character study of a misfit, who doesn't know what he wants and doesn't know how to get what he wants. As the story opens, Bobby Dupea (Jack Nicholson) is working a tough job on an oil rig in Texas. He asks himself over and over why is he doing that. His best friend Elton (Billy Green) and his wife Stoney (Fannie Flagg) live in a trailer and have 2 kids. For entertainment Elton and Bobby go bowling with Stoney and Rayette (Karen Black), Bobby's girl, and afterwards pick up other women. It is a low class life that eventually results in Elton being picked up for jumping bail. About 1/3 through the movie, we learn that Bobby didn't need to be doing oil rig work. He comes from a highly educated family in Washington (too highly educated), and he is called home because his father has had a stroke. The rest of the movie shows us Bobby's other life, which could have resulted in a classical piano career as he is highly educated too. With Rayette accompanying him, we see the contrasts of the two lives. During a discussion with Bobby's brother Carl (John Waite) and girlfriend Catherine (Susan Anspach), Rayette inserts There's some good things on TV sometimes. This is a movie of contrasts including the music by Tammy Wynette and Frederic Chopin. It opens with Tammy singing Stand by Your Man and D-I-V-O-R-C-E and continues with Bobby playing Chopin on the piano. That's where the title comes from. Bobby had learned to play five easy pieces. This movie was an Oscar nominee with 4 nods including Best Actor (Nicholson), Best Supporting Actress (Karen Black), Best Picture, and Best Writing. It won none. There are some unforgettable scenes in this movie including the famous one where Bobby tries to order an omelette with toast but has to order a chicken salad sandwich to get the toast. A particularly memorable scene also is Bobby's apology to his catatonic father where he tries to explain why he left to have an auspicious beginning. But the best quote of all belongs to Catherine: You're a strange person, Robert.Read full review
Jack at his best.Funny,heart breaking,just like real life at times.One of his forgotten films.The scene of him in the diner with him and the waitress,classic.Billy greenbushes character as Jacks best friend, nearly steals the show.And Karen Black starring as Jack's dim witted girlfriend is a can't miss.It's a story about a man that tries to leave his past life,but an unfortunate incident leads him right back.I could be more discriptive about the story line,but I want you to see that for yourself.It is a can't miss.Jack was nominated for best actor for his great role.I decided to buy this because I always wanted it on dvd.
Technically flawless: Direction, acting, editing, casting, script, etc.. A great film for these things, but a greater one for how it psychologically portrays a subject which is very difficult to portray: How children react to what they perceive their parents expect, then expect it of themselves. How bright children often create themselves not by emulating their parents, but by an attempt to be the opposite of what they think, their parents expect. However, they can't reconcile what they have created, with what they think they SHOULD have become. And so, they're lost. I love Jack's character in this film, because of his passion, and because I choose to feel I understand him. My mom was married 19 times. I haven't married. She took everyone's money. I give all mine away. She treated me abysmally, I've treated my daughter so generously, she's not fit to live with. In other words, I've lived my life to be the antithesis of my Mother, to my own destruction. And I can't seem to rewrite the script. Nicholson's character in this film is complicated, and pitifully heroic. I dislike the results his character, and admire it at the same time. Heavy.Read full review
Directed by Bob Rafaelson and starring Jack Nicholson and Karen Black, this film is a "must" for any student of the 1960s. Posing questions about purpose, depicting a cynical and rootless voluntary exile from a musical family (Nicholson) in a relationship with a devoted aspiring country-and-western singer (Black), ultimately severing all ties between the hero and his past, "Five Easy Pieces" is punctuated by cameo scenes and subtle character definition within a straightforward, even oversimnplified, cast of characters.
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