Reel Classics: Five Easy Pieces

In a pre­vi­ous Reel Classics review of the film Easy Rider, we talked of how Jack Nicholson’s role in that film revived his act­ing career.  It led to the star­ring role in this edi­tion of Reel Classics—Five Easy Pieces.  We see him as Robert Eroica Dupea, a trou­bled soul try­ing to find out who he is and where he belongs. 

The film opens with Robert work­ing on an oil rig in California, hang­ing out with his blue-col­lar friends from the trail­er park and liv­ing with his girl­friend Rayette (Karen Black) who is a wait­ress in a local din­er.  After work, they gath­er togeth­er and go bowl­ing and drink lots of cheap beer.  His friends know him as Bobby. His friend and co-work­er is Elton (Billy Green Bush) who has a part­ner, Stoney (Fannie Flagg) and an infant child. Rayette, though a wait­ress, sees her­self as some­day being a coun­try music star and goes about singing Tammy Wynette songs. 

We soon begin to learn that Bobby is not a hap­py man, and he is not who he appears to be.  We learn that Bobby was born into a very well-to-do fam­i­ly who hap­pen to live in a fine house on an island in Puget Sound off the coast of Washington state.  They are all trained clas­si­cal musi­cians and Robert (as he is known in his fam­i­ly) was trained at an ear­ly age as a clas­si­cal pianist. When he reached adult­hood, Robert decid­ed that this upper-class life was not for him, and he escaped to California where he took on the appear­ance of a man of the work­ing class and immersed him­self in that lifestyle. 

As we get to know Robert (or Bobby) we learn that below the sur­face he strug­gles with try­ing to dis­cov­er who he real­ly is and where he real­ly belongs.  He is not hap­py in his cur­rent life and often takes it out on Rayette, bring­ing her to tears.  But we also learn that she tru­ly loves Bobby.  When Bobby learns that Rayette is preg­nant he shares with Elton that he is think­ing about quit­ting his job and tak­ing off.  Elton takes him to task stat­ing that he needs to show some loy­al­ty and care for Rayette and his soon-to-be child. As we get to know Bobby there are hints that he is not what he appears to be.

One mem­o­rable scene in the film finds Elton and Bobby stuck in a traf­fic jam on the free­way.  Bobby gets frus­trat­ed and gets out of the car, run­ning up to var­i­ous oth­er stalled vehi­cles.  Ahead of him he sees a truck with an upright piano on the back cov­ered with a tarp.  He jumps up on the truck, throws back the tarp and begins to play Chopin. 

Not long after­ward, Elton is arrest­ed for a holdup and Stoney and the child are left alone.  Bobby’s frus­tra­tion grows. He quits his job and ven­tures down to Los Angeles to see his sis­ter Partita (Lois Smith), who is record­ing a clas­si­cal album.  She informs her broth­er that their father has suf­fered two strokes and is dying.  She urges him to go vis­it him.  Bobby trav­els back to Rayette to inform her of his father’s con­di­tion and tells her he has decid­ed to trav­el to Puget Sound to see him.  Rayette insists on going with him, threat­en­ing to kill her­self if he leaves her behind. He reluc­tant­ly agrees to take her, but decides that once they arrive, he will get her a motel room as he does­n’t want her exposed to his family.

The trip north to his fam­i­ly’s home is quite event­ful.  On the way they pick up two strand­ed women who are mak­ing their way to Alaska: Terry (Toni Basil) and Palm (Helena Kallianiotes).  Palm is a bit­ter per­son who rants on and on about con­sumerism, waste and the ecol­o­gy.  Her rants become increas­ing­ly annoy­ing to Bobby.  The four of them stop at a local din­er and we wit­ness the most infa­mous scene in the film. 

In the din­er Bobby’s order is reject­ed by the wait­ress as she tells him it is not list­ed on the menu and there are “No sub­sti­tu­tions.” This exchange leads to ris­ing anger on Bobby’s part, and he orders an item on the menu then insists that she hold the but­ter, hold the let­tuce, hold the mayo and hold the chick­en. When ques­tioned fur­ther he sug­gests she hold the chick­en between her knees. Needless to say, they are thrown out of the din­er.  Back in the car Palm tries to com­pli­ment him:

Palm:  “Fantastic that you could fig­ure that all out and lie that down on her so you could come up with a way to get your toast. Fantastic!” 

Bobby:  “Yeah, well, I did­n’t get it did I?”

Palm:  “No, but it was very clever.  I would have just punched her out.”

At the fam­i­ly home we begin to see the dys­func­tion from which Robert escaped. We meet Robert’s broth­er Carl (Ralph Waite) who is a clas­si­cal vio­lin­ist, and his fiancé Catherine Van Oost (Susan Anspach), who is a clas­si­cal pianist.  We also meet his father, Nicholas (William Challee) who is bound to a wheel­chair and appears non-respon­sive. A rela­tion­ship devel­ops between Catherine and Robert, but she con­fronts Robert with a very pow­er­ful obser­va­tion: “You’re a strange per­son, Robert. I mean, what will you come to?  If a per­son has no love for him­self, no respect for him­self, no love of his friends, fam­i­ly, work, some­thing — how can he ask for love in return?  I mean, why should he ask for it?”

In many ways, that obser­va­tion sums up the inter­nal strug­gles we find with Robert (or Bobby).  Another telling moment is when Robert gets his father alone to speak to him (know­ing his father can­not react or respond). He says: “I don’t know if you’d be par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ed in hear­ing any­thing about me, my life, I mean. Most of it does­n’t add up to much that I could relate as a way of life that you’d approve of. I move around a lot.  Not because I’m look­ing for any­thing, real­ly, but ’cause I’m get­ting away from things that get bad if I stay.  Auspicious begin­nings.  You know what I mean?”

As the sto­ry plays out, we see Robert’s strug­gles grow both with his fam­i­ly and Rayette, but more so with­in him­self.  As usu­al, no spoil­ers, but I will say Five Easy Pieces is a pow­er­ful film illu­mi­nat­ing the strug­gles that folks may have in achiev­ing iden­ti­ty and accep­tance of who they are and how they fit into soci­ety.  Film crit­ic Roger Ebert summed it up very well when he wrote “The title of ‘Five Easy Pieces’ refers not to the women its hero makes along the road, for there are only three, but to a book of piano exer­cis­es he owned as a child. The film, one of the best American films, is about the dis­tance between that boy, prac­tic­ing to become a con­cert pianist, and the need he feels twen­ty years lat­er to dis­guise him­self as an oil-rig­ger.  When we sense the boy, tor­ment­ed and inse­cure, trapped inside the adult man, Five Easy Pieces becomes a mas­ter­piece of heart­break­ing intensity.” 

No folks, this is not a Hallmark movie.

Five Easy Pieces was nom­i­nat­ed for four Academy Awards includ­ing Best Picture, Best Actor (Jack Nicholson) and Best Actress (Karen Black).  Jack Nicholson went on to star in sev­er­al oth­er very pop­u­lar movies in the 1970s includ­ing The Last Detail (1973), Chinatown (1974) and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975). 

Interestingly, Nicholson’s choice for the role of Palm was Janis Joplin but report­ed­ly she did not get the offer.  Also, this was the first cred­it­ed fea­ture film for Sally Struthers who lat­er went on to fame in the TV series All in the Family.  Considered for the role of Rayette were Ellen Burstyn (well known for her roles in The Last Picture Show and Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore) and Susan Anspach (who was cast as Catherine Van Oost). 

In 2000 Five Easy Pieces was select­ed for preser­va­tion in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.  The American Film Institute nom­i­nat­ed it in 1998 for the Top 100 Greatest American Films.  Roger Ebert has includ­ed it on his “Great Movies” list.  The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) rates the film at 7.4 of 10.  Rotten Tomatoes gives it an Audience Rating of 84% and a crit­ics rat­ing of 89%.  Searching with my Roku device I found the film avail­able for free stream­ing on PlutoTV. There is not a copy on the shelf at the Clark County Public Library (but I feel cer­tain they will obtain a copy if you ask). 

I’ll fin­ish with a quote from the Turner Classic Movie (TCM) review: “In the end, Five Easy Pieces is a fam­i­ly por­trait of love­less­ness, for Bobby and every­one he infects with it as he stum­bles away from pain through what­ev­er open door may beck­on.  Nothing is easy for Nicholson’s alien­at­ed artist — root­less, adrift, afraid, on the lam — or for the peo­ple in his life.”

Information for this Reel Classic review was gath­ered from Internet Movie Data Base (IMDb), Rotten Tomatoes, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and Wikipedia.

I’ll be back soon with the next Reel Classic, but before I leave you with the trail­er below let me remind you that if you enjoy these clas­sic movies, please join me on the sec­ond Tuesday of each month at 6 PM at the Clark County Public Library for “Ron Kibbey’s Comedy Classics.” I present a clas­sic com­e­dy film usu­al­ly accom­pa­nied by a vin­tage car­toon.  Popcorn and drinks are pro­vid­ed. More infor­ma­tion about the next film is avail­able on the library’s web­site and Facebook page, as well as WinCity Voices Facebook page.