Themes: Eccentric Families, Fathers and Sons, Journey of Self-Discovery
Main Cast: Jack Nicholson, Karen Black, Lois Smith, Susan Anspach, Billy Green Bush, Helena Kallianiotes, Sally Struthers, Richard Stahl
Release Year: 1970
Country: US
Run Time: 98 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
A disaffected man seeks a sense of identity in one of the key films of Hollywood's 1970s New Wave. Once a promising pianist from a family of classical musicians, Bobby Eroica Dupea (Jack Nicholson, in his first major starring role) leads a blue-collar life as an oil rigger, living with needy waitress girlfriend Rayette (Karen Black) and bowling with their friends Elton (Billy "Green" Bush) and Stoney (Fannie Flagg). Feeling suffocated by responsibilities, Bobby seeks out his sister, Tita (Lois Smith), and, discovering that his father is gravely ill, he reluctantly heads back to the patrician family compound in Puget Sound with a pregnant Rayette in tow. After a road trip featuring a harangue from hitchhiker Palm (Helena Kallianiotes) about filth, and Bobby's ill-fated attempt to make a menu substitution in a diner, he tucks Rayette away in a motel before heading to the house. There Bobby seduces his uptight brother Carl's cultured fiancée, Catherine (Susan Anspach), but Rayette shows up unexpectedly. As Rayette's crassness collides with the snobbery of the Dupea circle, Bobby loses patience with both sides. After trying to reconcile with his mute father, Bobby departs, unwilling to give in to either destiny. Director Bob Rafelson and screenwriter Adrien Joyce (aka Carole Eastman) used the creative control afforded by the low budget to craft a European-influenced character study, catching a cultural mood of anomie and resentment as it was embodied in Bobby. Neither older generation nor hippie, Bobby fits in nowhere, and his desire for independence conflicts with his emotional emptiness. Nicholson's nuanced performance of simmering frustration resonated with 1970 audiences caught between Nixon's "silent majority" and the troubled counterculture; a substantial hit, Five Easy Pieces was nominated for several Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actor, and established Nicholson as a star. Offering no "easy" answers to Bobby's existential crisis, Five Easy Pieces is one of the pre-eminent films in the early-'70s cycle of alienated American art movies, as even the fantasy of rebellion is reduced to merely running away. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
Review
The role that propelled Jack Nicholson to stardom was his turn as frustrated, disaffected musician-turned-oil-rig-worker Bobby Dupea in Bob Rafelson's moody character study Five Easy Pieces. Many viewers remember it for the classic scene at a diner in which Nicholson orders a chicken salad sandwich without the chicken salad, and it established Nicholson as an icon of angst. The supporting cast, especially Karen Black as Bobby's pregnant girlfriend, and Susan Anspach as his brother's high-class fiancée, is strong. Written by Rafelson and Adrien Joyce, Five Easy Pieces was shot like an arthouse movie, on a low budget, but marketed to a mass audience. It was a key breakthrough in tearing down those divisions between commerce and art in American movies, and in highlighting the class and cultural divisions of the time that were eating away at America's cultural cohesion. Nicholson's classic alienated character was long defined by this film and his Oscar nomination for his role in it. Rafelson, however, did not translate his success with Five Easy Pieces to a memorable career. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
Five Easy Pieces is a 1970 film written by Carole Eastman (as Adrien Joyce) and Bob Rafelson, and directed by Rafelson. The film stars Jack Nicholson, Karen Black, and Susan Anspach. The cast also includes Billy Green Bush, Fannie Flagg, Ralph Waite, Sally Struthers, Lois Smith, and Toni Basil. The film tells the story of a surly oil rig worker, Bobby Dupea, whose blue-collar existence belies his youth as a child prodigy. When word reaches Bobby that his father is dying, he reluctantly takes his girlfriend, Rayette (Black), a dimwitted, pregnant waitress, back home to make peace with his family. Nicholson's character and performance present a powerful picture of a troubled man, born to privilege and culture.
A title sequence as written in the screenplay showed earlier scenes in the Dupea family's life, including 10-year-old Bobby's recital program music: (the apparently fictitious) Grebner's "Five Easy Pieces". However, the sequence was not used, and the film titles open instead with the adult Bobby at the oil rigs.
In 2000, Five Easy Pieces was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
The movie's most famous scene takes place in a roadside restaurant where Bobby tries to get a waitress (Lorna Thayer) to bring him a side order of toast with his breakfast. The waitress refuses, stating that toast is not offered as a side item, despite the diner's offering a chicken salad sandwich on toast. Bobby appeals to both logic and common sense, but the waitress adamantly refuses to break with the restaurant's policy of only giving customers what is printed in the menu. Ultimately, Bobby orders both his breakfast and the chicken salad sandwich on toast, telling the waitress to bring the sandwich to him without mayonnaise, butter, lettuce, or chicken, culminating in Bobby's responding to the waitress' incredulity at his order to "hold the chicken" with "hold it between your knees!"
The waitress then indignantly orders them to leave, upon which Nicholson knocks the drinks off the table with a sweep of his arm.
The scene is iconic as a metaphor for the rebellious, free spirit of the youth of the late 1960s and early 1970s, a strong theme in the film as a whole. Thirty years later Nicholson would perform a scene in the movie About Schmidt which directly drew from this scene (available as a "Deleted Scene" extra on the DVD release). Nicholson's character in About Schmidt, an emotionally downtrodden retiree, in contrast, humbly accepts the waitress' "no substitutions" rule.
Trivia
The five classical piano pieces — not necessarily "easy" — played in the movie are:
