Five Easy Pieces

It's time for a look at one of the Best Picture nominees from fifty years ago. Five Easy Pieces was not a typical nominee. It was a bridge between the independent films of directors like John Cassavetes and what would become the gritty films of the 1970s, with a protagonist who is searching for his place in the world.

Jack Nicholson stars as Bobby, an oil rig worker. He lives a blue collar life, with a girlfriend (Karen Black) who works as a waitress and listens to Tammy Wynette. For fun he goes bowling or sleeping with other women (one of them is Sally Struthers, who would later play Gloria Stivic on All In The Family). But he is living something of a lie.

His sister (Lois Smith) tells him that his father is dying. He and Black drive up to Puget Sound in Washington and we find out that he comes from a well-heeled family of musicians, and that he himself was a pianist. He stashes Black in a motel and reunites with his brother (Ralph Waite), a violinist, who is seeing a pianist (Susan Anspach). Nicholson is attracted to Anspach, not helping himself in the Brother of the Year balloting.

Five Easy Pieces (the title refers to music) details a man's struggle to understand himself. Nicholson doesn't seem at home anywhere, least of all with his family. But when Black arrives at his father's house he's embarrassed for her (she asks for ketchup). But then, when some of Waite's friends come over, they are pretentious twits, subtly putting down Black, and Nicholson defends her.

The film also carries residuals of the counterculture of the '60s. A memorable section of the film has Nicholson picking up two stranded motorists (one of them is Toni Basil). They go on and on about how filthy the country is, and are headed for Alaska because it looked clean in a picture. Then comes the most famous scene in the film, when Nicholson tries to order wheat toast in a diner and ends up telling a waitress to hold chicken between her knees. Those who haven't seen the movie have probably seen this clip, which I suppose is a statement about rigid authority--"No substitutions." I was interested to hear director Bob Rafelson say that though he was grateful to have made a famous scene, he was sad that this was what the movie was remembered for, because it really was an outlier in the film--Nicholson's character is not a rebel.

Though Nicholson had been around for years, making several Roger Corman films, this was his first starring role in a serious picture and established the persona he would bank on for decades. Bobby is restless and impulsive. We see him getting out of his car during a traffic jam and climbing on the back of a pickup. There is a piano there and he starts playing, even as the truck takes an exit. The last shot of the movie sees him making an extremely impulsive move, one that will send shivers down anyone who is afraid of leaving their comfort zone.

Five Easy Pieces was written by Rafelson and Carole Eastman, who took her name off the picture and used a pseudonym, Adrien Joyce (Rafelson is still not sure why). It is a classic that helps define a critical time period in American movies.