University of Virginia Library

By Robert Nersesian

—Ed.)

"Five Easy Pieces" is about one
person, two pasts, and a lot of
wandering.

We joke a lot about rednecks in
Charlottesville. They are, for a
student, stock villains, comics, and
stooges. Every sophomore has a
choice vignette involving a truck
stop, a bar.

I remember a friend and I once
took a trip to Howardsville,
Virginia. It was raining and we
never did find it. We were going to
date a couple of "country girls"
who worked in the cafeteria. It
turned out there were two
Howardsvilles. We stopped at a long
trailer which contained an old
couple. They seemed practically
Illiterate, judging by their speech.
Yet, on their coffee table were
books by Nabokov and O'Hara.
Who knows why or how?

***

Bobby Dupea works on an oil
rig in the southwest. He is not a
nice guy.

He is a 'neck.

He swaggers and guzzles and
cheats on his girl friend, Rayette. It
is a shabby little world he lives in
and you can see his brim filling. He
does his best to make this flimsy
scaffolding collapse.

He also has his own version of
Nabokov and O'Hara a member
of a gifted family of musicians. The
youngest and most talented, he is
drawn back to this home, the
excuse being to see his ailing father.

But the shabbiness pervades,
made so by a simpering older
brother and a marvelously pedantic
atmosphere.

Words are one of Bobby's big
problems. Rarely can he express the
simple ones, those that can explain
or comfort. His first attempt is
drowned out by car horns; the
second is picked at an inopportune
moment. Finally, he finds the
silence of a grassy field and his
mute father to utter an apology
which is touching in its absolute
simplicity.

There is an indescribable tension
throughout this movie. Jack
Nicholson conveys it so well,
particularly at the climax. It is
standard to analyze an actor's
performance, but this is one I
would rather stay away from and
say "let be." He is so fine that it's
futile to try to peek under the
covers.

Director Bob Rafelson has great
story sense and has put together a
number of complete performances
admirably. But I think there is too
much visual energy. Making the
atmosphere a little more static,
especially around the Dupea
household, might have given a little
better balance. But I'm simply
hacking at stumps.

A legitimate gripe, though,
would be that photographic
director Lazio Kovacs has pulled
out some familiar tricks from his
"Easy Rider" bag. Watch the
opening credits and the panoramic
landscapes.

There is nothing universal about
Robert Eroica Dupea's character.
Yet many of us possess a piece of
the past. We keep it, only for
ourselves. But Dupea's pasts are
opened and he must run. An
ultimate lesson.