Friday Night Flicks: Five Easy Pieces
Perhaps with the exception of Chinatown (that “forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown” line will haunt me forever, more so than any line from The Shining), no Jack Nicholson film has seared itself more thoroughly into my memory than Five Easy Pieces.
We open on a cluster of oil rigs somewhere in the desert heartland of California, silhouetted by a slow-burning fuschia sunset, all set to one of the all-time greatest opening guitar riffs in country music history: Tammy Wynette’s “Stand By Your Man,” which, it’s worth pointing out, is based around a five-note motif. A few moments later we meet Bobby Dupea.
When compared to The Shining’s Jack Torrance, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’s Randle McMurphy, or the Joker, Bobby is, without a doubt, the most mentally-sound character Nicholson ever played, although he’s still a bit of a nutcase in his own right. He’s a retired piano prodigy who, for reasons unknown, decided to abandon his a formerly privileged lifestyle to live out a lonesome, blue-collar existence working the oil fields.
One day, after receiving word that his estranged father is on his deathbed, he impulsively quits his job and ventures up the coast to say his goodbyes. He isn’t necessarily enthusiastic about their upcoming reunion, which he knows will dredge up some unfavorable memories; but we get the feeling that the ghosts of his past have been tugging at his shoulder for a while now, that they’ve become impossible to ignore.
While it may never have lived up to the colossal reputation of Nicholson’s other work, Five Easy Pieces is a classic in its own right, pairing the artsy, soul-searching ambience of French New Wave classics like Breathless with some seriously-classic ‘70s Americana vibes; we’re calling it the ultimate fourth of July comedown flick. —Jackson Todd
