easy rider: a pursuit of American identity Essay -- essays research pa

easy passenger An Epic journey into the unknownFor the American dream motive little Rider is the late 1960s "road film" tale of a search for freedom (or the illusion of freedom) and an identity in America, in the thick of paranoia, bigotry and violence. The theme, of filmmakers Fonda/Hopper creation, centers around the self-styled, counter-cultured, neo-frontiersmen of the painfully fashionable late 60s. As for the meaning of Easy tugr, Peter Fonda (Wyatt) said in an interview with gyre Stone magazine, it is a southern term for a whores old man, not a pimp, but a dude who lives with a chick. Because hes got the easy ride. Well, thats whats happened to America, man. Libertys become a whore, and were all taking an easy ride . However, their journey is far from an easy ride it is a unsettling, frightening and revealing experience rounded up in self-destruction.Introduction to Easy Rider (1969)Easy Rider is a counter-cultural, experimental, indep residueent film for the al ternative youth/cult market, with sex, drugs, casual violence, reflecting the collapse of the idealistic 60s. The film does not film a clear plot, and its artistic merit is also doubtful, as a film critic Peter Biskind said, It had little background or historical development of characters, a lack of typical heroes, uneven pacing, jump cuts and flash-forward transitions amongst scenes, an improvisational style and mood of acting and dialogue, background rock n roll medical specialty to complement the narrative, and the equation of motorbikes with freedom on the road quite an than with guilty behaviors.However, it presents an image of the popular and historical culture of the time and a story of a contemporary but destructive journey by deuce self-righteous, drug-fueled, anti-hero bikers eastward through the American Southwest. Their trip to Mardi Gras in modernistic Orleans takes them through limitless, untouched landscapes including Monument Valley, various towns, a flower child commune, and a graveyard. However, they inevitably encountered local residents who are narrow-minded and hateful of their haired freedom and use of drugs. Extremely successful and low-budget, this film has won the 1969 Cannes read Festivals award for the Best Film by a new director. The film also received two Academy gift nominations Best Original Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor for Jack Nicholson in ... ...ay, but instead of peace and enlightenment, they experienced confusion and disillusion. At the end of the movie, the two protagonists experience hallucinatory emotions, where we can see intense colors, kaleidoscopical swirls, and distorted shapes and forms. They search for enlightenment, while inveighing agsint civilizations hypocrisy and brutality. Their rootless, drift pursuit of the American dream and the promise of sex, drugs, and rock n roll has been dubiously successful, dissatisfying, transitory and elusive. Wyatt believes there may have been another less destructive, less diversionary, more spiritually fulfilling way to search for their freedom rather than change hard drugs, taking to the road and being sidetracked, and wasting their lives. For all its counter cultural reflections, the movie does not portray the youthful movement uncritically, rather it provides an ambiguous ending, implying that excesses, even counter cultural ones, can be disadvantageous and destructive. David Hopper also defines this film as anti-counter cultural. The romance and dream of the American highway is turned menacing and deadlyXThey looked for America but couldnt find it anywhere.