5 Easy Pieces

In Peter Biskind's wonderfully gossipy 'Easy Riders, Raging Bulls' Rafelson comes across as poss. the biggest shit of them all...

Young people were feeling smug in 1970, but I don't think Bobby Dupea is very smug except for a couple moments.

Helena Kallianiotes is awesome.

holy fuck this movie is amazing. just watched the new version of it in the bbs box set. it looks luminous. and it is just... i don't know. this movie is perfect.

haven't seen it seen vhs days tbh. had no memory of it looking so great.

also is it embarrassing that i only now "got" the title? i always figured it was some early-70s slang...

great film

An all-time favourite that drifts in and out of my Top 10. I used a still of Nicholson and Anspach passing on the ferry bridge for the cover of my fanzine once. The scene between Nicholson and his mute father as Nicholson struggles to explain himself is as good as it gets. Whenever I break into my (not very good) Nicholson impression, I either go with his Chinatown speech to Faye Dunaway about his nose, or "Keep on telling me about the good life, Elton, 'cause it makes me puke."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_IVurj2Od0

king of marvin gardens is such a let down after this :(

Five Easy Pieces put to music, from Rayette's point of view:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IktAMW2ui3I

yeah definitely in my top 10 movies ever

ya clemenza that scene owns

love this

of course the classic piano-playing 360 shot too, it's up there with the last scene in repulsion

The 360 shot is brilliant (possibly an allusion to Weekend), as is Nicholson's comeback when Anspach compliments him on all the feeling in his playing: "I didn't have any."

Streaming on Netflix! I think my boring, rainy Sunday night needs to see this again right now.

also is it embarrassing that i only now "got" the title? i always figured it was some early-70s slang...

I think I'm more embarrassed, because I don't think I get it still.

this is free on my on-demand deal right now, been meaning to *rescreen* it

the five "easy pieces" are the five piano pieces he plays in the movie!

I used to think it had a double-meaning, that it also referred to the number of women he beds down during the film, but I only count four: Black, Anspach, and Sally Struthers and her friend (if you count both...it sort of looks like they're having an orgy). So I guess there's no double-meaning after all.

It is a reference to the piano pieces and also a play on the way piano music books are often titled ("Five Easy Pieces for Piano Four Hands" or whatever). But I do think it also has a double meaning, and I think the fifth woman is his sister, in a metaphorical sort of way, because it's about his relationship with women in a larger sense and not just in a literal sexual way. Although maybe there's an incest implied there? Haven't seen it in a while.

Makes sense to me--not so much the incest angle, but the sister's centrality to his life. Only thing is, if you include women he relates to in a non-sexual way, you've got to throw in Helena Kallianiotes and Toni Basil, too. And then you're up to seven women, at which point it becomes an Eagles song...Just kidding; I think you're right.

I'm not sure I agree

He treats each of those five women like an "easy piece" and convinces himself he feels nothing for each of them, as he does with the chopin.

Clarification from Stanley Kauffmann's original review (he loved it):

"As for the meaning of the title, several guesses are possible, including a sexual one and a reference to a piano album for beginners. But those are only guesses: I don't really know what it means.

P.S. Now I know. I've met Bob Rafelson and he tells me that my second guess was right."

The double-meaning still works for me, though.

He treats each of those five women like an "easy piece" and convinces himself he feels nothing for each of them, as he does with the chopin.

I don't think he treats his sister like an easy piece, nor does he seem indifferent to her.

love this movie, don't think the title has a sexual implication.

We need a tiebreaker

the scene with the dad is a killer.

but i think it was Pauline Kael who said the scene where he tells off the large pompos woman is too easy and self-righteous, and she was right.

I'd agree with that, and for the same reason I don't like the Nazi baseball-bat exchange in Manhattan: when you turn the object of ridicule/scorn into a caricature, it's fish in a barrel. (That the Woody scene is ostensibly meant to be funny doesn't matter much to me.) One time I think that works, of all places, is in the early Elvis movie (Jailhouse Rock?) where he confronts the woman who wants to pontificate about modern jazz: "Lady, I don't know what the hell you're talking about." It works there because Elvis doesn't try to come off as superior to the woman (like Nicholson and Allen), just exasperated by her.

One more thing: when you look at certain early scenes of Nicholson (like the one with the father), Pacino, or De Niro, it's amazing (and somewhat depressing) to be confronted by how far they've descended into self-caricature. It's easy to forget these days that they were once great, great actors.

it is kind of odd how they've gone the burned-out rock star route instead of the mature actor route

especially seeing nicholson in something like 'the passenger'... he was such a serious person at one time.

but i think it was Pauline Kael who said the scene where he tells off the large pompos woman is too easy and self-righteous, and she was right.

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Monday, 6 December 2010 12:35 (1 hour ago)

Yeah, basically agree although he's not entirely sympathetic in the scene because he's defending a woman he himself treats like garbage.

I don't know. It's believable that Pacino, Duvall, De Niro, Nicholson would descend into self-parody after so many great roles in the seventies. Why not repeat earlier successes?

Besides, Nicholson has consistently tried to play against type, and been pretty successful: The Border, Reds, Prizzi's Honor, Hoffa.

although I prefer the idea of Nicholson in Reds to his actual perf.

Jack has even had his moments as recently as the two Sean Penn films. (a decade ago, recent for him)

but i think it was Pauline Kael who said the scene where he tells off the large pompos woman is too easy and self-righteous, and she was right.

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Monday, 6 December 2010 12:35 (1 hour ago)

i do love that he calls her a "celibate" tbh

I shouldn't have made such a blanket dismissal of Nicholson, Pacino, and De Niro. I meant at their worst--they still surprise on occasion. I thought Pacino was really good as Roy Cohn in Angels in America, and I quite liked Nicholson in The Pledge.

ya for sure. all have done awesome stuff within the last 20 years.

Why not repeat earlier successes?

The thing is, when these guys go off the deep end--Hoffmann and Hackman do it too; not sure if Duvall has a strong enough persona to fall prey to this--they'll retreat to one small corner of their '70s successes, like a good SNL parody would. I won't go through them one-by-one, but I'm sure everybody knows what that means for each of them. When you look at a scene like Nicholson and the father in FEP, though, or Pacino's first scene in The Godfather, the schtick is still a million miles away.

well pacino's shtick isn't even tangentially related to his brooding quiet small godfather performance. DDA or serpico, maybe

Well, but it's inevitable, isn't it? Talent calcifies into mannerism.

and I don't necessarily mean it pejoratively either. I like lots of bands and directors who've mastered their schtick.

the thing with pacino though is that his "hoo-HA" shtick doesn't really have much relation to his godfather steez.

I like lots of bands and directors who've mastered their schtick.</i?

I do too, so I'm inconsistent there. I like Yo La Tengo's schtick, even when I know they're doing the same song they've been doing since 1986. With Nicholson and the rest, no. (I half-agree about the disconnect with Pacino; I think you'll find the same general tone in [i]Serpico, Panic in Needle Park, Scarecrow, and--where the show-offy stuff that later becomes a problem is brilliant--Dog Day Afternoon.)

One day, I'll learn to give up on the italics.

There was a Nicholson interview when The Bucket List came out where he said he's ready to relax and stick with light stupid comedy the rest of his days, and that he wasn't interested in putting himself through the hard work of darker/heavier/more dramatic roles anymore.

He's in that new Brooks movie. Mission accomplished.

doing light stupid comedy was on his bucket list

He's in that new Brooks movie.

I'm almost afraid to ask--Albert, James, or Mel?

I saw this movie for the first time a few months ago and was pretty disappointed

there were great parts and really horrible parts

I mean I would rather watch two lane blacktop again than this is all I'm typing

Bob Rafelson's 1970 film bridges the self-indulgence of the 60s youth cinema and the deflated naturalism of the 70s. The film embraces proletarian chic but still gets its laughs by abusing waitresses. With Jack Nicholson as the rebellious scion of an overcultured family who seeks refuge in the oil fields. Karen Black, Fannie Flagg, Susan Anspach, Sally Struthers, and Ralph Waite costar. By Dave Kehr

idk i sort of feel i should see this tho

Terrific piece by Nick Pinkerton on screenwriter Carole Eastman (who also did The Shooting, The Fortune, Puzzle of a Downfall Child)

http://www.filmcomment.com/entry/bombast-carole-eastman

spose yr idea of this film might depend if you heard a word of the dialogue....

Showing this for what I expect will be the end of my attempt to launch a local film club. (The woman who runs the community centre I'm beholden to wants to put everything on hold till the fall--not promising.) Seems like a perfect downbeat exit.

Great performance by Nicholson, I guess it's not as misogynistic as, say, Carnal Knowledge.

That one is so hard to stomach.

That's what the film's about, though--it's far from an endorsement of the two male leads. Nicholson ends up as an absolutely pathetic figure.

(Carnal Knowledge, I mean.)

Right. When I first saw it, I couldn’t stand watching it, later on I liked it a bit better.