In 1969 came a film that would capture the zeitgeist of the counterculture movement and launch an indie renaissance in cinema: Easy Rider. Co-starring director Dennis Hopper and burgeoning hippie icon Peter Fonda, Easy Rider is a road movie for the ages. As a distorted reflection of the American Dream, centered on a life free from attachment, it’s essential viewing to understand the evolution of cinema.
After a successful drug deal, Billy (Dennis Hopper) and Wyatt (Peter Fonda) set off on a pair of custom motorcycles, trying to get to New Orleans for Mardi Gras while looking for freedom and truth on the open road. Their journey takes them through the unseen side of America, to wide open ranches and hippie communes, finding new and novel towns to be refused service in, and picking up ACLU lawyer George Hanson (Jack Nicholson) along the way. Full of reefer smoke, LSD, and an avant-garde examination of the decimation of counterculture, Easy Rider hit the box office in 1969 like a barrel of buckshot. Don’t miss your chance to see this classic film on the big screen.
“Easy Rider, is not only emblematic of independent American cinema, but, released in 1969, is the definitive statement on the death of the 60s.” — Christopher Machell, CineVue
“This is a glorious widescreen vision of a hot and bothered America, at once beautiful and lost. Yes, it has dated, but its pessimistic last gasp (“We blew it…”) still carries a prescient sting.” — Ian Nathan, Empire Magazine
“It plays today more as a period piece than as living cinema, but it captures so surely the tone and look of that moment in time.” — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times