So recently I've been really into 60's biker exploitation films and their soundtracks, and I think the beautiful people here would highly enjoy them (if most of you haven't already). The essential three I began on and recommend most as your own motor-bound tour of the split-atom Sixties are:
âThe Wild Angelsâ (1966)
A young and sexy Peter Fonda is cast in the role that probably most earned his spot as the lead in âEasy Riderâ, with similar themes of freedom and the exploration of the rebellious Sixties that someone with an appreciation for Allen Ginsberg-style counter-culture critique would highly enjoy. The famous "We wanna get loaded and have a great time!" speech comes from this film, and a keen audience will note the way that Freedom (here as the open road, and the nihilistic use of offensive imagery and even more troublesome treatment of death, morality, sexuality and drug use) is treated throughout the film culminating in Fonda's "there's nowhere to go" message that he would re-enact in âEasy Riderâ in 1969. His character is the full-circle confessor and monument to the Freedom and Autonomy sought and largely gained in the Sixties. In my opinion thus far, this idea that freedom and autonomy as a means to an end (building something new) resonates so strongly when considering post-modernism and all of the most-exploited themes in art today, which I believe descend more from the eruption of the Sixties than any other place in time. Heâs also joined by the always lovely (and here just....marry me!) Nancy Sinatra.Â
âHell's Angels On Wheelsâ (1967)
Much more entertaining than allegorical, it's a great way to stay in the aesthetic vein of âThe Wild Angelsâ without a heavy focus on nihilism and critique, see a young Jack Nicholson break out in a way that, well at least in a way that I, have never before seen. Highly entertaining, featuring actual Hell's Angels as extras and consultants (Ralph Barger, President of the Oakland chapter, is seen in the opening credits as âSonnyâ and consulted. He also punched Jack Nicholson in the face early in production, and the two bonded later), this is the West Side Story of biker exploitation -- the music is the roaring machine and the dancing is fists and chains and the idealist between the worlds of nihilism and decidedly square modernism in the infantile postmodern world.
âEasy Riderâ (1969)
Essentially âThe Wild Angelsâ of motor-bound hippie culture, this film reprises Peter Fonda's archetype as the stars-and-stripes adorned archetype of that previous film in a very different way. Written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern, produced by Fonda and directed by Hopper, this film culminates Sixties biker-exploitation rider film craze with a far less tongue-in-cheek camp approach than was typical in the less allegorical films of that genre. You've got two motor-bound hipsters that make it big after a huge coke smuggling gig, going cross-country on their steel stallions to 'retire' young on golden beaches of Florida, and their misadventures along the way paint the cultural climate and major themes of the decade brilliantly. This is easily one of the best films I've ever had the pleasure of watching, but that's more a statement of exasperation following the alchemy these films have wrought upon my mind, conditioned by a lifetime of Marxist, Anarchist, Enlightenment study as well as the extremes of Autocracies, Tyranny, and so forth. Freedom takes the front and center stage once again as they meet horrific examples of anti-progress rednecks, racism, sexism, and conservatism; the wild and radical dissidents of the early free love and autonomous communes, their beautiful promise of something different (if not entirely better) and the wisdom of the land itself. Jack Nicholson joins in what I consider to be the first example of his trademark eccentric and highly "Jack" characteristics to add a third perspective for a while, similar to his character in "Hell's Angels On Wheels" as Peter Fonda's character to his own earlier role. The highlight of the entire film for me, at least academically if not stylistically, was the spot where Hopper's character says, "We've done it...we're rich, man...you go for the big money, man, and then you're free" to which Fonda replies, "You know, Billy, we blew it" before he goes to sleep. There are so many more incredibly wise lines throughout, such as Nicholson's powerful and comical statement about the societal structure of aliens which resembles a mix of individualist/collectivist anarchism, Communism, and many of the more beautiful (and least publicized) products of the brilliant minds of the generation lamented in Allen Ginsberg's "Howl."
You can live forever on the open road, you can die there, but where does it go? The road goes nowhere, there are towns and monuments and communes -- you name it. Believe it or not, there are even places where people haven't built anything yet, and there you'll still find plenty going on. The people cramped in houses and cities might seek the road as their destination, and those on the road always have to stop somewhere and leave again. The truth is, neither one is the end. One is a means to another, it's life and the passing of time. A quote from Robert Earl Keen comes to mind, "The road goes on forever, and the party never ends."
Sources: IMDB pages, my education and previous (and continuing) study of the era.
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