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MUSIC

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THUNDER

Dennis didn't die,

he escaped.

Dennis Hopper and the gas mask,

Dennis Hopper painting,

Dennis Hopper writing,

Dennis Hopper taking pictures,

and Dennis Hopper doing just about anything.

All on the run, one way or another.

I miss you always, my brother.

My friend.

You rest in peace

in the hands of the almighty God.

MUSIC

I can play a feeling of Dennis...

right?

Dennis feeling was all like this

SUBTLE GUITAR MUSIC

you can't really hear with this one

you know what I mean, it's like...

the big...

GUITAR MUSIC

MUSIC

He was ready to go, man.

He was like You know what, I'm ready, that's it.

MUSIC

He was a great witness and participant in

a lot of important moments in American history.

ROCK MUSIC

He had something dangerous about him

that's made him very interesting to me.

ROCK MUSIC

He would have rather died than not live the way he lived.

ROCK MUSIC

He was an Uneasy Rider, yeah.

He was an Easy Rider...

he was an uneasy Easy Rider.

LAUGH

An Easy Rider that was uneasy.

LAUGH

It wasn't easy to be an Easy Rider.

LAUGH

ROCK MUSIC

There is here no measuring with time, no

year matters, and ten years are nothing.

Being an artist means, not reckoning and counting,

but ripening like the tree which does not force its

sap and stands confident in the storms of spring

without the fear that after them may come no summer.

It does come.

But it comes only to the patient, who are there as though

eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly still and wide.

I learn it daily,

I learn it with pain to which I am grateful:

patience is everything!

MUSIC

Often times Dennis and I would spend

hours together without speaking

to each other because after 45 years

we knew what we were thinking.

And we didn't have to do a lot of talking.

I pointed things out to him,

he pointed things out to me

but we really didn't do a lot of conversation.

MUSIC

I always used to tease Dennis Hopper as a hayseed,

that is, he came from the flat lands of Kansas,

from the agricultural part of America, not

the cultural part, not the sophisticated, civilized

raised pinky part of Hollywood and western civilisation.

MUSIC

Well there's an interesting parallel, if you go

to Kansas, you live in Kansas, and you have no,

you look around, all you see is this horizon.

The fact that you get somewhere,

and you can achieve that from that upbringing,

you kind of, it's hard to let go of that.

And especially with all the indulgences he had.

Dennis was very prolific.

His photography, and his poetry, and his sculpting

MUSIC

I think it comes from a very unhappy childhood.

Wanting to

not getting enough approval from the house, from the home,

having to look for it in other places,

having the drive to wanna be something,

wanna be somebody but really not

having the education because of

the schooling to be able to do anything,

but perhaps play sports, fight a bull, race a car or be an actor.

MUSIC

He was the Shakespeare kid from Dodge City.

How am I gonna get outta here?

Acting. I'm gonna be an actor.

MUSIC

I mean obviously the guy

was curious about the world and took

the time to study it and to learn about it.

But he was jut like a

child.

I can't say it in any other way, it's...

amazing.

He had a wide-eyed looked like this,

he had that look in his eyes that

he discovered the world for the first time every day.

MUSIC

When I was doing this film on James

Dean and Dennis Stock recently,

I encountered a lot of images from Rebel Without A Cause with

Dennis Hopper in

the picture, a very young looking Dennis Hopper.

MUSIC

What are we gonna do with him?

Oh, don't worry, I'll figure out

what we are going to do with him.

You ever been in a chickie-run?

Yeah, that's all I ever do.

MUSIC

He thought he was the best actor in

the world until he met James Dean.

Then, after James Dean died, he knew

that he was the best actor in the world.

MUSIC

At 21 I was dropped from my contract at Warner Bros.

because I was considered too difficult to work with,

I been infected with James Dean and

I was blackballed by the studios.

MUSIC

I don't think Hollywood can cope with actors,

much less directors that have their own vision.

Okay,

Scene one, Take one,

each is for Hollywood

Action!

He represented freedom and rebellion and

the outsider and that's kind of a big topic,

that he was rebelling against the ordinary.

Against the word no .

If he said he couldn't do it, he tried.

MUSIC

I can remember Easy Rider when it was first being talked about,

and how it built within the community I was in,

huge, huge interest in something, that

was as revolutionary as Easy Rider was.

All we represent to them, man, is somebody

that needs a haircut.

Oh no.

What you represent to them, is freedom.

What the hell is wrong with freedom,

when that's what it's all about?

Oh yeah, that's right, that's what it's all about alright.

MUSIC

If you look at the acid trip in Easy Rider ,

it's very quick and very much like,

well like commercials are these

days, not like they were then, because I went a little further,

I pushed it a little further than I'd seen it.

I'm gonna die! I'm gonna die!

I did it. I did it. Do you understand?

Its' like a piece of Jazz, that you're watching.

That stuff's not written.

That stuff is felt,

I mean, when you see that scene on LSD in the cemetery,

that's brilliant and that's what Dennis did.

I know it. I know you. I know you.

The drug culture was beginning to roll into

town and the world was really aware of that

and this movie was so simple in it's direct

approach to addressing drugs and so, yeah, the movie was a trip.

AMBIENT SOUND

This was our introduction to

the centre of counter-culture thinking.

MUSIC

You will see in small areas, like towns in

Mexico, the counter culture still holds on.

Where you won't find it in mainstream America.

And a lot of people end up living here, for that.

MUSIC

ENGINE SOUND

MUSIC

He's right here in our backyard

and every now and then we get on our

bikes and we sit there by him and

sound our bikes there for him, and let him

know that we re still riding, we re around.

INAUDIBLE

MUSIC

Dennis Hopper Day just summons us like a sea in Taos.

And of all the people that showed up to ride, and

the screening of Easy Rider ,

the fact that Patricia Arquette is here

it means a lot to me, and it means a lot to, you know,

the people that loved Dennis.

So it was a little rough last year,

and if it's washed out now,

we decided to go a different route,

so we're gonna take Movery Hill out to the highway,

across the gorge bridge, we'll meet

there and then we'll go from there.

ENGINE SOUND

MUSIC

MUSIC

Ask yourself in the stillest moment of your night:

must I write?

Delve into yourself for a deep answer.

And if this should be affirmative,

if you may meet this earnest question

with a strong and simple "I must,"

then build your life according to this necessity.

MUSIC

Two or three film accounts I've read where they say

What is the worst film that's ever been made?

and a few times I've seen the Hopper film.

In my book, it's one of the most interesting.

There was this story of the film being made in this village,

the population of the village remakes

the film, but when they remake the film,

they make the cameras and so on, but

then they actually use real guns

to shoot each other, where in

the Hollywood film, the actors come,

they come to the village, they

shoot the film and

of course they use prop guns

and that part of the film was really,

like, that was pretty, I thought that was really interesting.

I thought it was marvellous.

I thought it was a very sophisticated film,

the obvious direction he should have gone in after Easy Rider ,

more complicated than Easy Rider , a better script,

more complicated characters, much

better story, editing fantastic.

AMBIENT SOUND

When you're so close to a movie, you're in

the movie, you wrote it, you directed it,

how do you get any kind of distance, you know.

So you keep editing, you show it to friends, they

don't like this, this one doesn't like that,

you re-edit and you keep editing and editing and editing.

MUSIC

There was a Hollywood editor, a friend of mine, Davis Burlatsky,

who put the film together and basically

built the different sequences.

And then,

his ideas and Dennis' clashed

and one evening, it was just like something out of a movie,

I got called to Dennis' house

and I was asked Can you finish this movie?

And I said yeah, I think I can so

that's how I came about and then what we

did is we polished the different sequences

and brought it from 5, 6 hours down to a movie.

MUSIC

There was one instance where they were pressuring

him to bring the movie back before it was finished,

and so he,

I don't know if he called, Danny

...and he said:

The film's been stolen, they came in with masks

and tied us all up and took the film away .

So, everybody knew that didn't happen, but it

proved for the moment to reduce the pressure.

I wanna thank the cast and the crew

for a hell of a lot of wonderful cooperation.

I enjoyed making this picture and I knew it

was difficult in this damn rugged location.

God bless all of you, I see you back in Hollywood.

I went to the opening night, filled with

a lot UCLA film students from that period.

People hated the movie.

And it could be, because

when you're expecting so much, here

is a movie that took so long to make,

this person who's transgressive, sensitive, associated

with a movie that, by that point, is a cult movie

and then you get The Last Movie , you don't know what to do.

ROCK MUSIC

The critics were dazzled and confused.

I think he was victimized by that,

the fact, that Dennis Hopper was willing to go the extra step.

The extra mile to make a film that was so radically different,

so unlike conventional Hollywood pulp,

if you will,

that he overstepped his balance in

that, he painted out of the frame.

ROCK MUSIC

We are solitary.

We may delude ourselves and act as though this were not so.

That is all.

But how much better it is to realize that

we are so; yes, to begin by assuming it.

We shall indeed turn dizzy then,

for all points that our eyes are been accustomed

to rest on are taken away from us,

there is nothing near anymore,

and everything is infinitely far.

A person removed from his own room and,

almost without preparation and transition,

and set up on the height of a great mountain range,

would feel something of the sort.

MUSIC

He began to feel like the public was beginning to recognize him

and it made him nervous and made him paranoid.

And so he kind of like

had to get out of Hollywood, he had to get away from

all of that and Taos was like a perfect place for him then.

MUSIC

Yeah in the early seventies it was

much more outlaw sort of place.

And it's been very commercialized since, but Dennis

was one of the free spirits, with of course,

Mabel Dodge and Frida Kahlo and various others were there,

it was an artists community.

For a long time. And Dennis entered

it and gave another feeling to it.

MUSIC

Yeah, we did a lot of hiking, arrowhead hunting,

but he wasn't one that picked up a lot of stuff, he was more,

I think he was just absorbing the fact

that we were walking through history,

through a natural history museum, a living

museum, I think that that was a facet.

MUSIC

I think he shared a lot of the Indians beliefs in history and

so he was really, he investigated

that, he really did, yeah.

TRIBAL MUSIC

TRIBAL MUSIC

In Taos he found mysticism,

a sense of the Indians, of what's

preceded, of what's there now,

so I think that in a lot of ways,

he found some real residence and

significance for himself in Taos.

MUSIC

Well, he was an icon.

So, when he came,

he was welcomed on an equal basis,

unlike Hollywood, where movie stars have a class distinction.

They are above the pedestrians. But not here. .

ROCK MUSIC

Yeah we would just run into each other on parties and have fun...

- There was a great party, remember the one at..

That's where I met you, actually...

MUSIC

Was a really cool party.

- Satya was hanging from these rafters,

that was the first time I saw him.

He's like hanging from these fucking

rafters, I said Who is this guy?

LAUGH

MUSIC

My girlfriend at the time, was reciting a poem

and Dennis Hopper opened his mouth while

she was giving the poem and I said

You have to have artistic respect Dennis,

shut that Hollywood mouth. Let her talk."

You know. And, you know, he did.

Cause everybody was the same there.

MUSIC

He had a fantastic life there and very, sort of

special American dream, the counter culture dream.

Maybe he said: Look, I don't wanna look glamorous here,

I'll be this other kind of character.

WESTERN MUSIC

I remember him reading If Rudyard

Kipling, I saw him do it live...

You know, Dennis, one time, there

was a TV-Show, the Johnny Cash

Show, you know, the musician had a talk show for a few years

It was on the Johnny Cash Show, exactly.

Exactly. Exactly, yeah, forgot that.

Johnny says I think you have something

you wanna share, Dennis, right?

In that voice, Johnny Cash.

He gets up there,

and Dennis like just,

it's like three minutes of the most incredible performance

ever, I mean, it's really worth watching if you've never seen

If you can keep your head

when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

Or being lied about,

don't deal in lies,

Or being hated,

don't give way to hating,

And yet

don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream

but not make dreams your master;

I mean he knew the whole thing, word for word,

it was insane. It's a really long poem.

And he knew it perfectly.

And wow, you know, that says a lot about him, that he,

not only did he know it, but he knew what it was about.

He understood the meaning behind it.

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds worth of distant run

Yours is the Earth

and everything that's in it

And which is more

you re gonna be a man, my son!

MUSIC

That's for you, Dennis.

The sun came out just for Dennis.

It did, look!

MUSIC

In the centre of the cyclone here,

cyclonic action surrounds us, but we remain tranquil.

GUITAR MUSIC

And he was rough, too,

the whole period he was in Taos

with guns and stuff, he was scary.

I visited him, stayed with him up in Taos, this was like

and we went shooting guns,

and he has these automatic weapons, and

we went off and did that, and I just felt like

Boy, this is hard, I never do anything like this

and yet Dennis wanted to do it,

you know, he wanted to go off in the countryside

and shoot these guns off, so that's what we did.

WESTERN MUSIC

They try to victimize icons like Dennis, though.

It happened all the time.

Like, the IRS got Dennis,

you know, the Internal Revenue Service.

That's what they're called, the IRS.

Dennis got in trouble with the whole

alphabet, the FBI, the CIA,

the IRS, you name it, any part of

the alphabet Dennis got in trouble with.

WESTERN MUSIC

''LA Fonda''

Did you get a shot of the jail?

Dennis was one of the most prominent residents,

there it is, now.

But I got him out, 10 minutes argue,

I wouldn't allow him to be detained.

MUSIC

And even if you were in some prison the walls of which let

none of the sounds of the world come to your senses

would you not then still have your childhood, that precious,

kingly possession, that treasure-house of memories?

WESTERN MUSIC

Well, I met Dennis probably

in 1972 or 3,

when I was going to produce my first

film in Australia about an outlaw.

WESTERN MUSIC

And we rented a little plane,

took flight from Albuquerque to Taos

and then Dennis was waiting for us

at the airport in a pick-up van,

with a firing gun in the air next to the plane.

That was the introduction to Dennis Hopper...

...very similar to the character of 'Easy Rider'.

WESTERN MUSIC

And he wanted to play the part in

this film and Daniel Morgan was

a character from history, he was an outlaw,

a Robin Hood sort of character, and

Dennis empathized with this character.

GUITAR MUSIC

Dennis arrived in Sydney, Australia with nothing.

''Where is your luggage, Dennis?''

- ''I don't have any, man.''

''What about your clothes?''

''You're supplying them.''

''What?'' - ''Yeah, man!''

And that was Dennis, you know.

And he just arrived in a pair of Levi's, no socks,

checked shirt and a passport.

''I'm ready.''

And by the second night he was there, he was in jail.

DOOR SMASHING

We had to get him out of jail and get him out of town

to get him away from the dogs and the bars and the fantastic

stuff cause he was trying to become Daniel Morgan.

It's your money or your life and it's in that order.

''It's your money or your life in that order.''

And he liked to do that, to anybody, and

he would maybe like a couple of bourbon,

but he was holding them up in his mind.

GUNFIRE

Stand and deliver Sir!

What's happening, that there was no hotel left

in this town, nobody accepted Dennis in the hotel room.

What does that mean?

There's a reward for you, dead or alive.

That's what it means.

The hotel room was a bit like a rock band on the road.

And when the managers would look into a room

which was somehow being damaged, they just said ''But why''.

And I found it very difficult to explain

that he was having a good time, you know.

WESTERN MUSIC

Dennis left after the shooting in Australia

going to Daniel Morgan's grave and pouring

Whiskey over it and being stopped by

the police having the highest alcohol rating ever.

Last time I saw Dennis, he left Australia

in the same set as he arrived.

With nothing.

He arrived in the Levi's suit and he left

with the Levi's suit and the passport.

That was it.

GUITAR MUSIC

TRUMPETS

''Apocalypse Now'',

there was a stroke of brilliance there,

that, it was very much like him in his kind of stream of

consciousness, understanding and expressing a character.

I mean, what are they gonna say man, when he's gone, huh?

'Cause he dies when it dies, man, when it dies, he dies!

What are they gonna say about him?

What? That was a kind man? He was a wise man? He had plans?

He had wisdom? Bullshit, man!

He was telling me on ''Apocalypse

Now!'' he'd get so high, that he

wandered off into the jungle and

nobody could find him for ten days.

He was in the jungle for ten days and then showed back

up, and he says he has no recollection of what happened.

I mean, who survives ten days in the jungle?!

GUITAR MUSIC

GUITAR MUSIC

He was brilliant in ''The American Friend'', I think that

might be, maybe that's my favourite performance of his.

He's great in Wim's movie.

DRAMATIC MUSIC

SINGING

DRAMATIC MUSIC

I like this room.

I make money. And I travel a lot.

It was rather unsatisfying and Bruno was upset.

On the second day, we have it another shot.

I asked Dennis if he could stick a little bit more to the script.

But when he again improvised, Bruno's response

was to punch Dennis in the face right in the middle of the take.

That was a beautiful

relationship that he had with Bruno Ganz.

GUITAR MUSIC

...God knows, that's where I wanna be...

GUITAR MUSIC

This gangster from the Reeperbahn,

Wolfgang Von Hamburg,

he insisted on taking us to

the airport, ''No I insist'', you know.

And so,

he was showering us with gifts.

Put that away, seatbelt on...

Man I am zoned.

Zoned, take these, take these, take these!

And he makes a fool of himself, by driving his car, erratically,

right in front of the concords, where

the leading terminal of Hamburg airport.

CAR SOUND

That's exactly right, exactly, exactly.

And then he took out a bunch of coke and poured

in on the dashboard under the wind shield,

so that anybody passing by would have no problem noticing it.

Shut up, shut up, gives you that

mysterious touch, you know what I mean.

It's one thing to be in the Reeperbahn but not

at the airport, cause that's the frontier.

Anything goes there, you know, cops can do whatever they want.

The white star, oh fuck.

Do you know (INAUDIBLE) press conference, get in the car...

Why did you get this car?

I said get outta here, ...hell.

Don't let that fool you.

See this, okay, 5 minutes, 5 minutes, right.

Oh, man...

I'm Henry the VIII.

off with their fucking heads

But it was rock music.

MUSIC

Burroughs had written a book called ''Junkie''

and I was curious about whether they

have ever written a screenplay.

So I checked with Dennis and the time, said

''Do you ever remember working with

Burroughs on the script for''Junkie'',

he said ''It was the seventies,

I don't remember the seventies''

He didn't really had fun at that time.

And I was like ''Come on, you mean all these drugs,

LSD, Cocaine, you didn't have like, a little fun''

And he was like ''No, not really''

And that was very shocking for me.

He'd come to this decision and realized, like, you know,

I'm not getting where I wanna be, you know I'm kind

of caught in this trap of alcohol and cocaine.

And I have to get out of not one, but both.

And he did! How remarkable.

I tried everything.

Booze, coke, nothing works.

There is only one honourable solution: The Roof.

DRAMATIC MUSIC

Everything is gestation and then bringing forth.

To let each impression and each germ of a

feeling come to completion wholly in itself

in the dark, in the inexpressible,

the unconscious, beyond reach of one's own intelligence,

and await with deep humility and patience

the birth-hour of a new clarity:

that alone is living the artist's life.

MUSIC

He was practically a zombie

and we brought him to ''New Beginnings'', the rehab centre

and he emerged successfully, never to have another drink

for the last 23 years of his life

and I think, that's when he spread out as a creative artist.

MUSIC

Don't you fucking look at me!

It was provocative?

I don't know.

If really, it is difficult for me to comment on

a film that was written and directed by David.

You know, because my responsibility is

not the film, it was the character.

LOUD BREATHING

But the most touching to me was Dennis Hopper,

one day, I remember,

we were doing the scene where Dennis

Hopper comes to hear my character sing.

And he is holding a piece of blue velvet rope,

and that's a cue for the character

played by Kyle McLachlan

to understand that there is something connecting us.

So I was singing away,

that was what I had to do, and I looked down at Dennis,

and Dennis was crying.

And I thought, Wow, he's an incredible actor!

He, the character he played, loved Dorothy.

But he was a violent, he was angry at

himself, he should not love a woman.

And that's why he beat her up.

But in the woman that I was on stage and slightly removed,

he could give in to it, and cried,

because he was in love with her, and the rage of saying,

''I don't wanna be in love with any woman, I'm a tough guy.''

I thought that was an incredible actor's choice.

It wasn't written. He did it.

SLOW PIANO MUSIC

So actors can add. And of course David Lynch took it.

ROCK MUSIC

Dennis, I photographed him once, in

the mid-nineties, in Los Angeles, in a hotel room.

Like an angry looking guy.

But because of ''Blue Velvet'', you

know, that was really what I was

looking for him, I loved that

edginess that he had in this film.

It's a master performance.

GUITAR MUSIC

I think it's hard to beat the intensity

that he had in ''Blue Velvet''.

I don't think I've ever seen that

equalled in a still picture.

I photographed him in Bottrop in Germany with some trees that

were wrapped up for the winter and it was a surrealistic

kind of sight, but it was part of my fake paparazzi

pictures, so it was just to create a mystery, really.

And then the picture I liked best

out of those was, the moment when I

opened the camera slightly too early,

there was light falling into it.

And that kind of accident made that

picture the best of the shoot.

GUITAR MUSIC

I worked with Dennis on a film that I directed in Spain,

where he came for a day,

and he and Grace Jones had a scene together.

In the desert in Armenia.

Which was great, and he came out

thoroughly charming and delightful.

Everybody came to the set,

I think there were like 6 actors called that day,

like 25 actors came because they all

just wanted to see Dennis, watch him.

I'm looking for a room.

There are no rooms

No rooms.

Well where do you sleep?

In the shed, behind the petrol station.

I ain't sleeping in no shed.

LAUGHTER

Of course not, darling.

Boy, I just let him go, really.

I mean, the thing is, if actors know,

if they're good actors, I think they know

the character better than the director does.

It doesn't look like you're sleeping in a shed to me.

LAUGHTER

When Dennis burst out laughing,

when all these guys

come to him with guns and stuff,

they come through the window,

, that's perfect.

I wouldn't have done that, it wouldn't have

occurred to me, but it was perfect, you know.

He knows what to do, he's his character.

I wanna give you my card,

I.G. Farben, Ranch Style Homes.

Helping people help themselves to have a home.

If he was working on a B-movie with

a super low budget or a giant project,

like ''Waterworld'', the huge budget movie,

Dennis gave 100 percent.

Artistically, emotionally, spiritually

and performance-wise.

GUITAR MUSIC

''Backtrack'' was really interesting,

because it began in Venice, California,

where Dennis lived, and he made it

about that Venice artists community.

So he would have, like he had Bob Dylan

playing Laddie Dill, the Venice artist.

And it was quite funny really, it

was quite comical, because Dylan,

again, is an amazing musician, but not necessarily an actor.

And so Dylan would like, we would do the takes, and Dylan

would go ''Uuh, I haven't seen Laddie Dill in a long time ''

And Dennis goes, Cut, cut, you re Laddie Dill!

''Oh, yeah, right right right Another

take ''Uuh, I haven't seen Laddie Dill in

a long time.''

- ''Cut, cut, you re Laddie Dill!''

''Oh, right, yeah yeah yeah''...

I haven't seen Anne Benton in a long time.

Her forms aren't exactly simpatico.

Who did you say you were working for?

Oh I work for Bank of America.

It was entertaining to see Dennis in the middle, recreate

the Venice artist community with rock'n'rollers.

WESTERN MUSIC

So Venice California was not only a great community

for artists and aspirant artists, it was also

the only community on the Pacific Coast in Los

Angeles where minorities could afford to live.

The criminal element, gangsters, so it

was a real mix, really interesting.

I rode the bus off Lincoln Boulevard, got off at the bus

stop, walked down Indiana Avenue to Dennis house, hung

out with him a couple of hours, walk back and I find,

and I walk back and I'm shadowed by young gangsters

These guys from the neighbourhood, you know...

And the thing is, I'm also carrying

my bags, they don't realize

this, but in my bags is this

really expensive camera equipment.

And I'm thinking,''Oh man!

These guys are gonna,

are these guys gonna heist me for my camera equipment now?

And I saved 50 cents by riding the bus!''

You know. And I sit down at the bus

stop to wait for the bus to come,

one of them comes up to me and he

goes ''Dennis Hopper man! Yeah!''

WESTERN MUSIC

I'm just in L.A.

I was working at a gas station in Beverly Hills,

and I really wanted to meet Dennis Hopper.

And I would tried to find out where he lived.

And somebody told me he lived in Venice somewhere.

Then I rode there on my motorcycle,

I had a '74 sportster

and I rode there and I found this big,

metal house with this big fence around it

and I said That's where Dennis Hopper lives .

And I went around the back of it and

there was a big gate and it was open.

And I rode in, and there was a garage and I stopped the bike

and I heard his voice ''Hey, man''.

And I looked up and there he was in the window,

he was looking down, he goes ''What are you doing, man?''

And I go ''Well I came to meet you''

And he goes ''That's usually closed,

man, that gate's usually closed, man''

And I go ''Well, I'm sorry, I'm not on your property''

''You are on my property, man''

And so I, you know, I backed it out, you

know, and I said ''I'm sorry, man''

and he goes ''Cool, cool, man''

And I said Okay you know, and then he was

watching me and I rode away, you know.

And that was when I actually first met him.

COUNTRY MUSIC

Have you seen ''Hell ride''?

COUNTRY MUSIC

The first thing I said when I got to

the set, I go ''Where is my bike?''

Ironically, two days later when he started

I heard someone say ''Dennis is here'' and I said ''Oh, man''

So I went outside and there he was,

and he goes ''Where is my bike, man?''

LAUGHTER

and I said ''That's what I said!''

He started laughing, he goes ''Yeah I

wanna ride it, man'' I go ''Yeah''

And the transport guys were really worried, like

''Oh, isn't he like, old, you know, he's

super old, isn't he like 80 years old?''

And I was like ''Guys, you gotta let him go

out and ride this thing. Guys, no, man''.

MOTORCYCLE ENGINE

How long have you had that bike?

Since 1976. Follow me if you can!

Everyone's going ''Oh my god, he's riding it''

And of course he was, I mean he knows how to ride a motorcycle.

I love that movie so much.

A lot of people think, it's a silly film

but I love that movie cause he's in it.

The Gent.

That's me.

Pistolero would like to chat with you and Comanche.

Well thanks for the latest breaking news there,

Wolf Blitzer.

I do have a story that I wanna tell, about Dennis.

Because it really meant a lot to me when it made me really

understand how much pressure he was under to be Dennis.

Which was, when we were working on Hot

Spot, we went to a County Fair in Texas.

And we drank a lot of ice tea, and

I needed to use the bathroom, and

they were looking at something, so I

just raced off to use the bathroom.

And I come back, and people are circling like sharks.

Dennis is looking at the people.

And they're just not saying anything,

they're just circling him, staring at him.

And I break through, and I go, 'What's going on?!''

and Dennis grabs me and we go walking, and

he says, ''Don't ever do that again.''

And I said, '''Don't ever do what?!''

And he said, '''Don't ever leave me

alone in a public place ever again.

I have to keep moving.''

LOUD TALKING

COUNTRY MUSIC

Art too is only a way of living.

Therefore save yourself from these general themes

and seek those which your own everyday life offers you;

describe your sorrows and desires,

passing thoughts and believe in some sort of beauty

describe all these with loving, quiet, humble sincerity,

and use, to express yourself,

the things in your own environment,

the image from your dreams, and the object of your memory.

GUITAR MUSIC

You know, when I was gonna make ''Basquiat'',

the first film, that I directed,

he was the first person that said,

he would be in the movie.

And the fact, that Dennis was in the movie,

other actors figured, okay, we'll give Julian a chance,

we'll see if he can do it or not.

All the painters please.

All the painters. Mr. Bischofberger please.

Dennis' role as the art dealer Bruno

Bischofberger is so brilliant,

, so spot-on, I would say, that Dennis

is even better than Bruno in life.

Yeah just have them drop you at Mr. Chow's.

We'll all be there. It's a great show!

You wanna know how it was playing Burno Bischofberger?

Exactly.

LAUGHTER

He wears these knickers, you know,

with the socks and the thing,

it was very funny, I thought it was very funny.

Julian said I was a little like Peter Sellers.

It was funny, I had a Swiss accent which I used,

you know, ''Ja, ja. Buy the painting,

ja, wonderful, ja, this is wonderful''

So, more or less like that.

I mean, this is the one,

I absolutely have to have this one.

I mean, this is super fantastic.

Jean-Michel, I must have it.

I think what we're talking about

is somebody that was authentic

and who wasn't compromised and who,

whatever he did, it was true to him.

And sometimes, what he did was very very extraordinary.

SPILLS LIQUID

SPILLS LIQUID

SPILLS LIQUID

Is it art?

Or is this art?

I like what Marcel Duchamp said about

''The artist of the future will be a man, who points

his finger and says ''That's art'' and it'll be art.

MUFFLED TALKING

I allowed myself to paint,

I wanted to take photographs,

because I wanted to direct films,

I learned not to crop my photographs,

I never cropped any of my still photographs,

so that I would use the full frame when

I would become a director of a film.

So I never saw any of these disciplines

as being different from the others,

I just saw one continuing, to be a way

of expressing oneself emotionally.

ROCK MUSIC

I met him through a gallery, Ferus Gallery, here in L.A.

He went to Claes Oldenburgs wedding,

shot pictures there and he got that great

picture of Rauschenberg holding his tongue out.

I think the photographs he took of people, at parties,

of Warhol and all the guys, over the years,

were quite special.

And they been the photos that have documented

the period more than anybody, I think.

GUITAR MUSIC

You would always see Dennis and he'd have that Nikon around

his shoulder and sometimes two, sometimes three Nikons.

GUITAR MUSIC

GUITAR MUSIC

I had done a painting, a big painting called ''Radio'',

with the word ''radio'' and I believe he saw

that and he's taking pictures of his friends,

you know and I say ''Wow, that's

fine, sure, what do you wanna do?''

And he said ''Well I got this idea, let's

go down on Santa Monica Boulevard.''

GUITAR MUSIC

And so he said ''Just stand there'' and look in the camera

and not much direction or anything, just ''Look in my

camera and be yourself'', something like that, something

really simple. And, you know, he, 5 minutes, he was happy.

So he was shooting lots of film, and

he would find things on the street,

he would find, like, common things

that were on the street, signage,

you know, iconography of the streets, of Los Angeles.

GUITAR MUSIC

That's why I'm so drawn to like, graffiti, and these

sort of infantile scratches and images on wall,

because it's very much like our life, I mean, we're here

for such a little moment in the whole scheme of things,

but we each contribute a little bit to the building block

of culture, and we all work in the vineyards of culture.

SOFT UPBEAT MUSIC

He wasn't a guy like Gerhard Richter where painting was what

he did and here is these different groups and...

everything is very very clear.

Because he was more of a fluxis artist

and I mean, he did extraordinary things.

I mean, when he blew himself up in Texas,

for example, that was a great performance.

I believe it's called ''Life and death on canvas'', where

he filmed himself doing this stuntman's trick.

Are you ready?

'Cause the stuntman is...

Staying all in the same place.

Dennis gets in the middle of this circle,

is ignited, this tremendous explosion.

We're getting ready.

EXPLOSION

I think nobody can possibly survive being in

the centre of this and here Dennis just walks out.

Hey! ... Hey man. Woo. Woo! Woo. Woo.

It also shows kind of the extreme, kind of

the craziness of Dennis' aesthetic during that period.

Woo. Woo! Woo. Woo. Hey man. How about

professional people working huh?!

Professional people working...

It meant a lot to him to have his

work shown in an art context.

MUSIC

This tonight, I think it's an important

event in modern art history cause Dennis',

his life as an artist has encompassed and

been woven in, inextricably with a big art

movement of the west coast, I mean come

on, it's major people we're talking about

here. And this, tonight is like a combination

of it and the recognition of his works.

SLOW MUSIC

The art world can be very stubborn,

even cruel, saying Dennis Hopper,

he's an actor, he can't be an artist,

he's not allowed to be an artist .

SLOW MUSIC

The world is run by mediocre people.

And he didn't really fit in, he didn't fit in one category.

And so, he was always an outsider.

Which would make him very attractive and at

the same time made things difficult for him.

What is that?

Hey, look at that, I'm in business,

I just found a piece of

post-modern deconstructivist art.

Hey, wait a minute.

Is he the artist, because he made it

or am I the artist because I found it?

Or is just Charlie Saatchi the artist because

he sells it and sells a fortune from it.

If everything is art, then nothing is art.

At least, not until somebody wraps

a lot of long words around it.

So in that perspective it was very

good to see somebody and know

somebody like him, that would bridge these different worlds.

That someone could come and penetrate these

various kinds of roles of the art world.

You know, acting, painting, photography, movies,

all of this and it was a rare thing to see.

MUSIC

Perhaps it will turn out that you

are not called to be an artist.

Then take that destiny upon yourself and bear it,

its burden and its greatness, without ever

asking what reckon pins might come from outside.

For the creator must be a world for himself and find everything

in himself and in nature, to whom he has attached to himself.

ROCK MUSIC

He's a unique individual.

And Dennis Hopper chose film as his primary

vehicle to express his creativity.

But anyone who knows anything about his life

knows that it went in many different directions.

He had a keen eye for not only art, but

also for photography and also for music.

Once upon a time at the foot of a great mountain, there was

a town where the people known as the Happy Folk lived.

Their existence was a mystery to the rest of the world

He performed on the Gorillaz album

as a music artist. So he was

able, uniquely, I think, to express

himself in many different ways.

The mountain called Monkey had spoken.

There was only fire, and then nothing.

One of his key characteristics is not only to stay curious

about life, but also to constantly reinvent himself.

And that's very necessary for creativity.

I think that's one reason why he liked U2 so much,

because U2 always works hard to reinvent their music.

Welcome ringside, from Dublin, Ireland, with a record of five

MTV Awards...

He used the analogy of being a champion,

fighting hard, which is also what Dennis

does, as a warrior, and used that to introduce

U2 and the fans absolutely loved it.

U2. Yeah!

It's unusual for anyone in the creative industry to

be able to bridge gaps of different generations.

And that's exactly what Dennis Hopper could do.

He did it so successfully. He stayed current.

This is Bruce Smith s shoe, man. Huhu. Wait a minute.

This is this is Rod Woodson's shoe!

Stacy Wall wrote these Nike commercials with this

strange character, it's like a homeless referee

and asked me to shoot some commercials. I was

surprised that Dennis wanted to do the spots.

I'm looking forward to the season

like a slug looks ...

First day, it almost went down the toilet. The second

commercial was him singing a song, this is my favourite.

... Richard White, Steve Young, Arian Foster

and players with much longer names, yeah.

He asked for the Teleprompter,

and I said: ''We don't have a teleprompter'' .

He blew up, said ''My agent specifically asked for

a teleprompter'' then stormed off into his trailer.

I said ''Here it goes, it's over''.

So I quickly got some big cards and

I started writing the cue card

and the assistant director is writing the other half. He came

out, he came storming out of the trailer, says ''Just throw

the stuff away''. Nailed it, 2 or 3

takes, perfect each time. Perfect.

Yeah! I'm looking forward to the season

and especially the Two-Point Conversion.

He was using himself as a guinea pig in whatever

shape or form or whatever medium he was using.

And sometimes he would hit it, and it

would be great, and sometimes he didn't.

SLOW GUITAR MUSIC

I met Dennis on my very first movie

called ''The Piano Player''.

Can someone explain to me what this is

all about? Am I a prisoner or something?

Erica. I've had to make some very

important decisions about my life.

He was impatient with me because I

didn't get things right from the get-go,

and then he could see that I was

very intimidated and then he finally

asked me, like, ''How long have you been

an actress?'' and I said Basically,

this is it and from then on, he really, he taught me everything.

Erica, don't make things so difficult.

I may not be a perfect father.

But I believe in my own way, I did my best to raise you.

You know, when he liked somebody, he could be

generous, he would have given you his last shirt.

But he was also a very, you know,

he expected a lot from people.

If he felt like you were not paying attention or you

weren't good enough for what he saw

should be given he could be harsh.

He didn't really get along with

the director and my other co-star.

And you know, he tried to convince the director

that the scene between these two actors just

wasn't gonna work and that he should really do

a scene where he talked to a goat for ten minutes.

Mr. Goat, do I know you? I'm Robert Nile.

And at the end of the day, that's what happened he cut

the other actor out of the scene

and he did the scene with a goat.

LAUGHTER

My mother split. You know what I'm saying to you?

Do you think my daughter loves me?

SLOW GUITAR MUSIC

And he had to fight, all the time to, kind of, get by.

It wasn t

...it was always a trial somehow.

You know, there's a line in this book

about van Gogh, where he's reading

one of these rhymes, it says

''Is the walking always be uphill?''

And the answer is, yes, it will.

''And is it gonna be over soon? No, it's gonna start early

in the morning and it's gonna last till late at night''.

''And will it ever get any better? 'No, it won't.''

COUNTRY MUSIC

I met Dennis many years ago in Barcelona.

And I remember, just, you know,

because I'm very shy, so, but I thought,

''Dennis Hopper is here, you have to

tell him how much you admire him'',

but then you know, after twenty minutes,

he started drinking a lot,

and you know, there was these two Japanese sisters,

like really young, beautiful girls.

That was the end of the conversation,

with these two Japanese girls.

MUSIC

And then, you know, many years after, when we

were casting ''Elegy'' we had Penelope Cruz, Ben

Kingsley and we were looking for someone who is able

to face Ben. And I thought about him, you know.

MUSIC

He said ''Nobody is offering me roles

like this, I love it, it's great,

yeah. And also, I have the opportunity

to die and I love dying in movies''.

APPLAUSE

I think the shot we did more takes

of was when he is dying and they

have to kiss. That last grasp for

life was that kiss in that movie.

I owe you.

AMBIENT SOUND

DEEP BREATH

And that scene was painful, because you

can see the guy was, you know, he said he

loved to die in movies, but it was clearly

an exorcism for death in real life.

UPBEAT MUSIC

That is at bottom the only courage that is

demanded of us: to have courage for

the most strange, the most singular and

the most inexplicable that we may encounter.

That mankind in this sense has been cowardly has done

life endlessly harm; the experiences that are called

''visions'', the whole so-called ''spirit-world'', death,

all those things that are so closely akin to us.

UPBEAT MUSIC

Death is an arrow from the future, flying towards you.

That is the fear of death.

The fear of life is the fear of death.

I'm the opening.

I'm the connecting door, not the dead end!

I'm the only way out.

He suffered terribly actually. But he

put on a face that didn't show that.

Now.

Take my portrait.

He was ready to go, man.

He was like ''You know what, I'm ready, that's it.''

You know, at the end, I never saw

him seeming to be worried about it.

You know? Even at the Star ceremony.

I remember he was sitting with Jack Nicholson.

And him and Jack were laughing about something.

And

I just thought ''Wow, I mean, there's a guy who knows

that he's out of time but he's fine with it!''

John. John. Miss? Miss? Miss!

Ten years before that, I was trying to figure out

''How does a person get a star on the Walk of Fame?'' you know.

Even back then I was wondering about it, that it would be cool.

And I was like ''Man, you know what?

They're never gonna get me one of those

fucking things, man. I'm never gonna

get a star of the Walk of Fame.''

And Dennis goes, ''Haha, me neither man! Yeah, I've

been trying to get one of those for years man!''

He goes, ''I'd have to be dying of

cancer to get one of those man!''

And we laughed about it, we thought it was funny.

And now man, all those fucking years later,

I mean, look at it, that's exactly what happened.

Poor guy is dying and

they suddenly decided to give him one.

By the way, when they said there were 403 stars

already on Hollywood Boulevard, it's hard

to believe, that it has taken this long to

acknowledge the greatest star of them all.

APPLAUSE

Dennis Hopper is the coolest guy on the planet.

APPLAUSE

Ladies and gentleman, we proudly welcome to

the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Dennis Hopper!

And I was very happy that he got it, he

died a few weeks after he got his star.

MUSIC

All deaths are beginnings, not endings.

And I like to think that Dennis went to a higher

place, and I think he died a fulfilled man.

AMBIENT SOUND

This is for Dennis Hopper:

See him wasted on the side walk, with his jacket and his jeans,

wearing yesterday's misfortunes like a smile.

Once he had a future full of money love and dreams,

which he spent like they was going out of style.

And he keeps right on to change, for the better of the worst,

searching for a shrine he's never found.

Never knowing if believing is a blessing or a curse,

or if the going up was worth the coming down.

He's a poet he's a picker he's a prophet he's a pusher.

He's a pilgrim and a preacher and a problem when he's stoned.

He's a walking contradiction partly truth and partly fiction.

Taking every wrong direction on his lonely way back home.

MUSIC