FIVE EASY PIECES

US, 1970, 96 minutes, Colour.
Jack Nicholson, Karen Black, Susan Anspach.
Directed by Bob Rafaelson.

Five Easy Pieces was considered the best small-movie-makers' film of 1970. The film itself, the direction, the screenplay writer, Jack Nicholson and Karen Black were all nominated for Oscars, although they received none,
The film is a successful and not too pretentious look at American life and in its simplicity and open-endedness has reminded critics of the best Czech films of men like Miles Forman.

The hero is not an eccentric dropout, rather a man who lives a commonplace life, doing the things that men like him have done for centuries. He doesn't even want to be dignified by being thought of as a searcher. He says he drifts. But it is clear that deep down, under his irritation with himself and others, he is looking for, or at least wanting, something. Wider audiences could identify better with Robert than with the dropout Easy Rider types. Robert is also older. The picture of American industry, the South, the upper-class Washington people, is not flattering, but it is the easily identifiable world of most of us. It does not seem to challenge Robert (nor even does the music and the talent he was brought up on).

Robert is also a poor communicator, which seems one reason why he does not understand himself. In an attempt to communicate with his paralysed father, he does break down a little and weep, a confession that helps determine him to start again. But we can only wonder what he will be like after the film ends. Production, vignette scenes and acting are all very good. The film does not make sensational impact. It works on a deeper level.

1. Did you like this film? Do you think it catches and represents contemporary moods?

2. What kind of a hero for the film is Robert? A drop-out? A drifter? He says he drifts and denies that he is searching for anything. Do you think he understands himself properly?

3. Why has he left home and given up his music?

4. Did he enjoy the kind of life he was living when the film opens, hard work, friends, waitress girl friend, clowning, carrying an with other girls? What did he want to do?

5. Why did he go to see his sister while she was recording? What did her behaviour at the recording studio reveal of the type of life Robert had led before he went drifting?

6. Why did he decide to go to see his father? Why did he really take Rae along?

7. What was the point of the introduction of the two girl hitchhikers, especially the incessant complaining about dirt and pollution? Who was being satirised, the environment or the girls?

8. What was the point of the scene in the cafe? Who and what was being attacked?

9. What impression did the family make on you? Did Robert's playing of Chopin ("an easy piece") really move Catherine? Why was there antagonism between the two?

10. What impressions did his visit home make on him:
- the love of music;
- Catherine's saying she was happy to live this isolated musical life;
- his sister's love for him;
- his father's inability to speak;
- Rae's incongruity amongst this class of person;
- the artificiality of the jargon of the guests;
- his confession and weeping with his father.

11. Why did Robert leave Rae and go off by himself?

12. Do you think he had much chance of making a successful, and less self-centred, new beginning after what he had experienced?

13. The film was nominated for the Oscar for best film for 1970. Do you think it was an award-winning kind of film?