IV. To Disrupt, To Rebel: |
Easy Rider (Hopper, 1969)
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 | "What the hell's wrong with freedom? I mean, that's what it's all about."--Dennis Hopper as Billy
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Easy Rider, difficult for the generation that grew up with its significance to acknowledge, is a period piece. To the generations born after the 1960's, the loose talk of self-determination, the hippie aesthetic and lexicon, the psychedelic interludes, and the freedom rock soundtrack of the film are now the stuff of satire that simply doesn't compute or resonate.
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To the youth that came of age with Easy Rider, a re-witnessing of the film in one's full maturity would evoke many disturbing and perplexing, possibly even painful, responses. Laughter, shame, puzzlement, and betrayal may all emerge from seeing a film that was the definitive artistic statement for the generation that was to change the world.
Peter Fonda, playing a detached and laconic "Captain America," opens the film with the definitive anti-establishment gesture. By throwing his wristwatch to the ground, Fonda defines the modus operandi of the entire film: to liberate one's self from the artifice and constraints of a society that is unjust, hypocritical, and pungent from the odor of rotting standards. Fonda, and fellow travel companions played by Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson, set out on the open road in search of freedom. However, they soon find that the absolute liberty and free will they choose to exercise is so dangerous and threatening to the establishment that they die as a result.
Easy Rider was released during the tumultuous and riotous summer of 1969 (see chart) under a Pluto, Jupiter, Uranus triple conjunction. This once in roughly one-hundred twenty year alignment correlated with some of the most remarkable and unforgettable events of an already distinguished decade: the Moon landing, Woodstock, the beginning infrastructure of the internet, the continuing proliferation of student rebellions on either side of the Atlantic, the irrefutable general tenor of insurrection and freedom. With the archetypes of Pluto and Jupiter dilating, uplifting, empowering, and intensifying the innate potentials of Uranus, this was truly a unique and special time. Creativity, technological innovation, rebellion, and the need for freedom—all facets of the Uranus archetype—soured to new and unprecedented heights during this brief but beautiful cultural renaissance.
Fonda, Nicholson, and Hopper were carriers of the Uranus archetype for their generation. The freedom of expression, as evident in their clothes and speech, the freedom from governmental restraints, freedom from economic accountability, and freedom from societal ties and responsibility showed the extreme psychological thirst for independence and self-determination that was in the air at the time. Fonda, Hopper, and Nicholson were also nomads, searchers, and seekers, expressing Uranus's fundamental need to wander and to explore uncharted lands and alien territories.
Easy Rider was the rallying cry of the countercultural ethos that is all but buried now. However, the universe seems to operate on a strange logic. Just when the principles that fueled the film seem dead—ideals such as freedom, independence, experimentation, and rebellion—then it is often a sure indication that times are rife for the rekindling of such desires.
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