Easy Rider

Wow, I agree with Max. The film really was painful to watch. From the first frame, the protagonists (what were their names again?) were already taking drugs. It felt that not only the characters, but the filmmakers themselves, were pretty drugged up throughout the experience. I started to wonder if I had taken something myself... or wish I had...

Max mentioned the scenery of the film being beautiful, and I agree. Throughout the hour and a half, I could not help but wonder how much of the success and popularity of the film is due to the novelties it would have presented to an audience in the late sixties. I imagine that, before this, few films had been shot almost entirely in the outdoors, and with such freedom to explore America's terrain from a biker's perspective. There is also the cultural aspect; how did "Easy Rider" look by the end of the sixties? It was probably representative of a society that moviegoers recognized and identified with. Yet today in the 21st century, such distinctions are merely commonplace, and have even rolled into the category of "cliche."

"Easy Rider" is probably a good example of a film that doesn't hold up in its own right today. Being squeamish and overly timid, I found it difficult to watch the often explicit and downright disturbing drug and sex scenes; but even putting those personal reactions aside, I found little to enjoy as a viewer in 2008. The film's message of freedom and promotion of the hippie lifestyle is outdated, and its technical features are unspectacular too. A decent plot and universal values might have saved the film, but alas, here too, it fails to deliver.