Easy Rider - Chimezie Ononenyi
Easy Rider is a very different movie in that there was very little dialogue between the actors and actresses. It was produced in ways that leave the viewers to make meanings out of the scenes.
The movie definitely exhibits Miller’s meaning of hippie counterculture and lifestyle. While some parts of the movie display the positive aspects of such hippie counterculture, some parts do portray it in negative ways.
For instance, the movie shows a group of people that are willing to settle for less. Sixties was undeniably a time of social and various other changes. However such shanges did not reflect the living conditions of average American citizen. Knowing that they had every opportunity and access to better living in the sixties, they chose to be more dependent upon themselves and less succumbing to the ideals of their government. Also there seemed to be an utter prohibition of violence and hate amongst them.
In some not so positive ways however, the hippies were displayed as dirty, stupid, and lack of proper family upbringing. Their clothes seemed more like rags, their living conditions were very poor, and they had less concern for many health problems as a result of practices such as marijuana smoking.
In addition, I agree with Costello’s comment in that Woodstock became one of best movies of all time not because of the dialogues, but because of the ways that individuals lived and dealt with one another. Such method of transmitting the message of the movie is very similar to the method used in Easy Rider. There was more information transmitted through the actors’s and actresses’s interaction with each other than did through their conversations.
As many people often say, pictures usually have a thousand words and explanations behind them. Such perception can definitely be applied to Easy Rider.