Original subtitles

Hi, I'm Dennis Hopper.

I play second bike to Peter Fonda in this movie...

...and also I directed it and wrote it with Peter and Terry Southern.

The original idea of Easy Rider came from Peter Fonda.

He was in Canada with Arkoff and James Nicholson...

...the owners of A.I.P., American International Pictures.

And they were promoting a picture that Peter starred in called The Trip...

...which Jack Nicholson wrote.

And I played the drug connection in with Bruce Dern and Susan Strasberg.

And they were in Canada promoting this.

And Peter told Arkoff and Nicholson a story...

...about two bike riders...

...who smuggle some drugs.

And sold them and got a couple of big, beautiful Harley Davidsons...

...and drove across the country in costumes to Mardi Gras...

...and have a wonderful time at Mardi Gras.

Then the next day they go into Florida...

...and they're shot by a couple of duck hunters.

And he called me at 3:00 in the morning...

...and said that Arkoff and Nicholson said that I could act in it...

...and that we could write it together...

...and that I could direct it and he could produce it.

And What did I think?

And I said, "Did they really tell you they'd give you the money, Peter?"

And he said, "Yes." And I said, "It sounds like a great idea to me."

So from that point on, Peter and I started making an outline...

...and we walked his tennis court, as he said many times...

...and we talked for about 10 days...

...until we had a complete outline, the two of us.

And we went off to shoot...

...in New Orleans.

The Mardi Gras sequence. Peter was a month of when Mardi Gras was.

So suddenly I had to put a group of friends together...

...that had 16 millimeter cameras...

...and go and shoot Mardi Gras.

We did that and then I went back.

Terry Southern and Peter went off to write a screenplay in New York.

And Paul Lewis became the production manager on this movie...

...on Easy Rider.

He'd done two movies, The Shooting and Ride the Wild--

Ride the Whirlwind, I believe it was called.

Were two pictures that Jack Nicholson produced with Paul.

So Jack had suggested that Paul Lewis be the production manager.

So Paul and I went across country and found all the locations.

When we got to New Orleans, I called...

...and found out that Terry and Peter hadn't written anything.

So I got on a plane to New York. and I shut myself up for ten days...

...with a secretary and dictated the film.

Came back and we began principal photography.

The first scenes that you've just seen, the cantina...

...was shot in Taos, New Mexico, to make it look like Mexico.

And this is shot at the airport in Los Angeles.

This is Phil Spector, the film producer, who--

I mean, the record producer who's a friend of mine.

That's his bodyguard and his Rolls-Royce.

We're making a cheap movie here.

I think our final budget was somewhere between $340,000 and $360,000.

Phil's very good in this scene. He's a natural-born paranoid.

Every time a plane came over, he was sure it was gonna land on his head.

The music in the picture became very important to me as I was editing.

I edited the movie for over a year because we couldn't see...

...any dailies on location.

This is "Goddamn the Pusher Man"...

...by Steppenwolf, and later it's "Born To Be Wild"...

...and The Byrds and Hendrix...

...and The Band.

These were the songs that I heard on the way to the editing room.

They became part of the movie.

Laszlo Kovacs was the cinematographer...

...and he'd just come out of Hungary and the revolution.

He's probably the best telephoto operator I've ever seen.

Peter found--

I was never really into motorcycles.

I think of them as work, but Peter's always been into motorcycles...

...and he found a young black man-- We found a young black man that I knew...

...Cliff Boss, who was a member of a gang, I think the Satan Slaves.

I can't remember.

But I'd known him from the civil rights movement.

And he built the bikes.

He built the choppers.

I was conflicted at this time about the symbolism of America...

...and against the war in Vietnam.

The idea of putting the money in a gas tank that had an American flag on it...

...and the idea that we were destroying ourselves...

...and this beautiful chrome machine...

...we lived in the United States...

...if we weren't careful we'd explode and blow up and implode.

The idea of taking time and throwing it away because we had made our score...

...and we're rich and we could go...

...and retire in Florida...

...was the dream.

But also I thought of America as being a society full of outlaws and criminals.

Because we were all smoking marijuana...

...and doing drugs at that time, and it was all illegal.

We were also against the war in Vietnam.

And the Black Panthers were active.

The country, as we started out in 1968, was ablaze with riots...

...across the country.

So Easy Rider was always a fable of what was happening at the time.

This is "Born To Be Wild."

A lot of the stories that we tell when we finally meet with Nicholson and so on...

...about people having long hair...

...and having it chopped off when they go across Texas.

And the police arrest them and shave their heads with rusty razor blades.

These are stories that Paul Lewis and I...

...heard on the road when we went across country.

Since I had long hair, we kept getting into fights because of it.

So I incorporated these stories into the screenplay.

A lot of these people were friends and people that I'd worked with...

...in various bike movies...

...and so on, at A.I.P., American International Pictures.

Sabrina Scharf had come out...

...of Hells Angels On Wheels, Jack Nicholson's film that he starred in.

Luana Anders had made a little movie that I'd done with Curtis Harrington...

...in the street for $25,000 called Night Tide...

...which was the first independent film they'd ever made outside the studio...

...in California.

She was also in Francis Ford Coppola's The Rain People, his first feature.

Luana Anders.

William Hayward was, at the time, my brother-in-law...

...and also had grown up with Peter.

This is Leland Hayward's son and Margaret Sullivan's.

Bert Schneider's father was Abe Schneider...

...who was chairman of the board of Columbia Pictures.

He was the one responsible for us to be able to make this film...

...with the kind of money we made it for and be able to, like, pay the unions...

...and have it be distributed by Columbia Pictures at that time.

You asshole!

I thought of this as a Western.

I thought of this as a Western.

Just two guys on, rather than being on horses...

...out by the side of the road, you know...

...making their campfire and camping outside of town.

A classic kind of Western: two loners, two gunfighters, two outlaws.

Billy the Kid and Wyatt Earp.

Out here in the wilderness, fighting Indians and cowboys on every side.

What's the matter? You zonked? Really zonked, eh?

No, I'm just kind of tired.

You're pulling inside. You're getting a little distance tonight.

You're getting a little distance, man.

Yeah. Well, I'm just getting my thing together.

This was all improvised, and Peter was like--

I don't know. He seemed a little down that night.

I had to have a lot of energy and do a lot of stuff and say:

"Hey, you're really pulling inside yourself"...

...trying to make him seem intense and seem interesting, which Peter is.

But that night he was a little down, so I had to do a lot of energy stuff.

Most of these scenes are improvised.

These are things that I just found and liked the way they looked.

I was also very interested in European films.

I'd been looking at European films.

I was interested in trying to make the first American art film...

...and also outside the studio system.

The cheap paperback novel.

Come on, it's checkout time.

Hey, Billy.

Man, don't do that.

The idea of the box and the book, and the bones...

...and the collage kind of qualities of things....

The structure with the light coming through the beams...

...and Peter looking up...

...and I constantly wanted to give him a sensitivity, a special kind of feeling...

...of being alone, a feeling of being able to contemplate nature...

...and contemplate things.

A lot of these things came out of these kind of ideas.

My two favourite directors at this time were....

Howdy!

My favourite films at the time were a trilogy called The World of Apu...

...Aparajito, Pather Panchali.

Pather Panchali, Aparajito and the World of Apu...

...by an Indian director named Satyajit Ray.

And then Luis Buñuel was my other favourite director, the Spaniard.

And a lot of the symbolism...

...for example, the man with the horse and the man with the motorcycle...

...and the changing of the tyre on the motorcycle...

...the changing of the horse's hoof.

I mean, putting the--

Putting the shoe on the horse.

These kinds of things...

...are Buñuel at his worst.

Also, I have to, like, talk about John Ford and Hawkes...

...and Huston and all those too.

There you go.

This comes out of my coming from Kansas, being a farm boy.

Would you mind taking off your hat?

We thank thee, Lord, for these thy gifts received from thy bounty.

In the name of thy only begotten son...

...Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Where you fellas from?

L.A.

This is Warren Finnerty. Warren Finnerty was a New York actor.

When I cast him as a farmer, he said, "You sure I'm right for this part?"

But he was an old friend of mine.

And a lot of the actors in here were from a film I did, Cool Hand Luke.

Warren Finnerty was one of the prisoners in Cool Hand Luke, as I was.

And later, Luke Askew, the man that we pick up--

The hitchhiker that we pick up on the road, was also one of the--

He was a guard, actually.

Warren and I were prisoners in Cool Hand Luke...

...Rosenberg's film with Paul Newman.

Can we have some more coffee?

No, I mean it.

You've got a nice place.

It's not every man that can live off the land, you know?

Can do your own thing in your own time.

You should be proud.

This is The Byrds.

I think of the music and the words of the songs as part of the stor--

I think of them as part of the narrative of the story.

Peter had, while I was editing...

...had gotten Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young to do a wonderful--

They were doing an album...

...and they told Peter that we could have the album for the movie.

While I was editing, I found all this other music.

And I really didn't want Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young...

...even though I think they're great musicians.

So I sort of sabotaged that deal in lieu of keeping the music that I'd found.

Also I had this idea of a time capsule that we'd leave actually.

It was the first time that found music was ever used.

So I wanted to sort of leave the time of the music...

...of the time that we actually existed.

Because everybody used big scores at this point...

...so this was the first really time capsule of sound.

Easy Rider.

It was funny, in those days, all you needed was the artist's permission...

...to be able to use the song in the film.

If you wanted to make a record you had a little more problems, but--

Put out a soundtrack record.

That's all you needed, was the artist's approval to have it in the movie.

Times have sure changed.

It's more expensive now to use found music than make a score...

...for the film.

This is outside Flagstaff, Arizona...

...on our way to the Hopi land.

Luke Askew, this man, was also in Cool Hand Luke.

Hey, man, what are you doing?

Come here. I gotta talk to you, man.

Everything we ever dreamed of is in that gas tank.

You got a stranger pouring gasoline on it.

All he's gotta do is look into it and he can see--

He won't know what it is, man.

Don't worry, Billy. Everything's all right.

All right, man. I don't know.

I do.

Everything's fine, Billy.

That's all taken care of.

I like that.

This is The Band coming up.

This starts out going into what I call John Ford country, Monument Valley.

This is coming out of the Painted Desert into Monument Valley.

We were losing the light...

...so at a certain point, I wanted to get to the Inspiration Point...

...so I could get a shot of the big mesas...

...and the canyon.

And so I just took off on the bike...

...and had Laszlo and the crew follow me across.

And we got there just in time.

He said, "I don't think we have enough light."

I said, "Push it two stops." And we did.

And it came out beautifully. I'll show you when--

I'll tell you when it's on.

This is the shot.

That was my greatest motorcycle experience".

...going across this canyon, catching this light...

...for this shot.

These are the Anasazi, the ruins of the Anasazi, the ancient people.

And it's in the national park, Sunset Crater Park...

...right outside of Flagstaff.

There was a guard there. The second I jumped up on there...

...he started screaming, "You can't get up on there. They're 50,000 years old!"

I said, "Just keep moving, just keep moving."

Us movie people, we're hard to deal with...

...when we've got a shot in our minds.

So anyway, we got this...

...and then we weren't up there long, though.

And he still let us shoot in front of it. So anyway....

But it was a beautiful shot and I had to have it.

Hopefully, we didn't damage it too much.

I sometimes say it all day.

Really? You say it all day?

We don't have much longer. We'll be there soon.

This is a totally improvised scene.

And basically what I'm trying to do...

...is get out the information that I've got to get out of these two guys...

...which is where are we going, what are we gonna do...

...and get on with this scene.

And they're talking about Porky Pig and they're talking about--

You know, and Billy gets a little irritated.

He goes, "Where are you going? Where are you from?"

"We're going to Mardi Gras."

"Oh, you've got your little mind set on that, have you?"

And all I was trying to do was feed information...

...to keep this movie moving along toward Mardi Gras...

...and where we were going.

But it's a very funny scene.

And only through improvisation could this really be successful.

I keep seeing things jumping all over the place.

-Really? -Yeah, look.

-What is it? -It's a moth.

-A what? -Moth. Bug.

This is a weird place, man.

That smoke's getting to me.

But I notice you're not moving.

Where are you from, man?

Can I have a light?

Where are you from, man?

Hard to say.

Hard to say? Where are you from, man?

It's hard to say because it's a very long word, you know?

I just wanna know where you're from.

The city.

From a city?

Doesn't make any difference what city. They're all alike.

That's why I'm out here now.

-That's why you're out here now? Why? -Yeah.

Because I'm a long way from the city...

...and that's where I wanna be right now.

They know you in this place?

This place we're coming to?

The place where we're at now?

This place.

You're right on top of them.

-I'm right on top of them? -Yeah.

The people this place belongs to are buried right under you.

You could be a trifle polite.

"A trifle polite"?

A small thing to ask.

You ever wanna be somebody else?

I'd like to try Porky Pig.

I never wanted to be anybody else.

I use a device here of cutting out, direct cutting.

I'd been to a few film festivals...

...and I realised the Europeans were only direct cutting.

This device I just used, going bang, bang, bang...

This device I just used, going bang, bang, bang...

...rather than using a superimposure.

It's probably- I don't think it's ever been used before or since.

But it was my idea, like...

...of direct cutting a film...

...without the cheating of superimposing one image over another.

So I just direct cut from one thing back to the other.

This is a Taos pueblo...

...where I later moved and lived for 15 years.

My brother still lives up there...

...and my cousin is married to a woman from the pueblo.

His son, Dylan, has gone through the kivas...

...and was one of the five people in the pueblo...

...who speak the ancient language.

So Taos became my home.

Then we cut to there, to the top of Mulholland, where we built the....

We built this commune...

...which was a copy of the New Buffalo commune in Taos...

...but they wouldn't let us shoot there...

...so we built it up on top of Mulholland.

A couple of friends of mine, George Herms and Wallace Berman...

...helped create the decor of it.

You can't hit me. I'm invisible! I'm invisible!

Hey, Sarah.

Sabrina Scharf, who starred in Hells Angels on Wheels with Jack Nicholson.

And she later became a state senator in California...

...in the legislature.

Thanks for the stuff you brought.

How's it going?

We can't take any more strangers. Just too many people dropping in.

Oh, I'm not talking about you and your friends, you know that.

Last week, Susan dropped in with 12 people from Easter City.

She wanted to take 10 pounds of rice with her.

Naturally, we had to say no.

So she gets uptight, breaks out some hash and won't give us any.

They went outside to start their bus...

...and couldn't get it started.

I bet you haven't had anybody around like me to rap to.

You know I love you and I want you to rap.

-Oh, God, I want you to rap. -Cut that out.

I guess nobody else here is interested...

...but I'd sure like to meet your friend.

That's Luana Anders, who I starred in Night Tide...

...and was also with Francis in The Rain People.

What is that weird thing up there on the hill?

It looks like a stage. You got a light opera company?

That's the mime troupe stage.

They've gone down to the hot springs to bathe.

Mime troupe?

Hey, Lisa?

What does this mean?

"Starting brings misfortune.

Perseverance brings danger.

Not every demand for change in the existence order....

That's Carrie Snodgress, who's married to Neil Young.

--repeated and well-founded complaints...

"should not fail to a hearing."

Well, when one--

Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye!

We've come to play for our dinner...

...or should I say, stay for our dinner.

Or even...

...slay for our dinner.

Men at war. How ghastly, ghastly!

We've come to drink your wine...

...taste your food and take pleasure in your women.

The water in that river is about 80 degrees.

You put your hand in a foot away, it's below freezing.

Oh, come on. I've gotta get dinner.

I mean, this mime troupe is a takeoff on the mime troupe in San Francisco...

...that Emmett Grogan and Peter Coyote and the Diggers started...

...to feed the people in the park.

And they would come and travel around the communes...

...and stay for a while.

Get out.

I like you.

These people got here late in the summer.

Too late to plant. But the weather was beautiful...

...and it was easy living. And then came that winter.

There were 40 or 50 living in a one-room place.

Nothing to eat, out by the side of the road, looking....

These were stories that I heard when we went across country...

...scouting the locations.

That's Grizzly Adams.

Dan Haggerty, one of the guys in the commune.

Robert Walker, Jr.

His father was Robert Walker, mother was Jennifer Jones.

And his wife....

He's the one that gives the prayer in a while.

And Wallace Berman...

...the artist, and George Herms and their wives.

Look at this, man. A seashell. Dig.

That's Robert Walker.

There's nothing but sand. They ain't gonna make it.

They're gonna make it.

They will. They're gonna make it.

That's Dan Haggerty.

This is Robert Walker.

Dan Haggerty-

This is my 360-degree shot...

...which every first director, I guess, has to do.

At least, I did.

This is natural sound. I didn't sweeten it at all.

These are kids crying, and chickens and things all around.

And Susan Fonda, Peter's wife at that time.

That's George Herms and his wife. And that's Shirley Berman...

...Howard's wife.

We have planted our seeds.

We ask...

...that our efforts be worthy...

...to produce simple food...

...for our simple taste.

We ask that our efforts...

...be rewarded.

We thank you for the food we eat from other hands...

...that we may share it with our fellow man...

...and be even more generous...

...when it is from our own.

Thank you for a place...

...to make a stand.

-Amen. -Amen.

Amen.

Let's eat.

Hark ye gentles! Hark ye all.

Time has come for curtain call.

This is a song of the American Revolution.

Are you an Aquarius?

Pisces?

I guessed right.

I love the way Luana Anders follows the fly.

A true actress in the moment, living in the moment.

Yeah.

Who sent you?

I gotta get out of here, man.

We got things we wanna do, man.

I gotta get out of here, man.

Hey, could you take me and my friend over across the canyon?

Yeah, anything.

It won't be out of your way, honest.

It's all right.

It's all right.

We're not no travelling bureau.

-Why don't they get their own ride? -Hey, hey, hey.

We're eating their food.

All right, man.

-Get them together though, man. -Right.

Neil, come on.

More water! More water!

This is in Taos, New Mexico.

Rio Hondo River.

These are the hot springs that are right by the Rio Grande River...

...called The Stagecoach Crossing.

And when we first came there, Peter got pneumonia.

So you just see the legs there.

Peter's never in the scene with us, I shot the girls and I.

Because I had to get rid of them. We had no money and I shot them.

Then three weeks later, I came back and shot Peter...

...because he was in the hospital.

You see, he's always isolated.

And also, when I came back...

...the water was 5 feet difference in elevation.

There was 5 feet gone. It was shallower by 5 feet.

So that's us on one side, and that's three and a half weeks later.

This I remember from The World of Apu.

Him standing, holding a piece of grain...

...and a piece of something like wheat chaff in his hand...

...standing in front of a huge--

And then it out from that to this forest with light coming through...

...and this great ocean pounding, these great waves pounding...

...and a little man standing in front of it.

Anyway, that's where the--

The idea evokes man and nature.

So I had Peter stand out touching a weed, probably.

Yeah. l'm--

I'm hip about time.

But I just gotta go.

This is in Las Vegas, New Mexico.

We shot the interior of the jail in Taos, New Mexico, an artist community.

And when you get inside, you see all the graffiti is real graffiti...

...and a little plastic thing that hangs the wall.

It says, "Jesus Christ now and forever."

All these things were actually in the jail.

We got the little band...

...in Las Vegas, New Mexico.

So we shot the exteriors in Las Vegas, New Mexico...

...and the interior of the jail is in Taos.

And this is where we meet Jack Nicholson.

I wanted to-- I built this character into the plot...

...because I wanted us to kill one of our own.

So that...

...this short-haired lawyer who was a part of the establishment...

...that they kill since he's associating with a couple people who are long hair.

This thing about being headliners and Captain America...

...at the beginning of this movie, which is not part of it...

...I had us as stunt riders in a carnival show.

And Peter was the main act, and I was his sidekick.

And he would do a human dynamite thing...

...where he was a human stick of dynamite.

He'd lay down in a tissue-paper coffin...

...an American tissue-paper flag coffin...

...wave to me and I would push the plunger and 20 pieces of dynamite...

...would blow up around him...

...but dynamite won't blow in on itself if it's in a circle.

So this is a trick that I'd seen when I was a kid...

...at a rodeo in Dodge City, Kansas.

I wanted to start it out that way.

These things were actually all on the jail wall...

...in Taos.

We used the interior of the jail.

That's the way I wanted to start it out.

So he's talking about, "You know who we are.

"We're headliners, man. This is Captain America and I'm Billy," or whatever.

This was a scene that we shot only being paid by the carnival owner.

And so I cut it out of the picture.

Didn't really need it.

There was also a helicopter chase at the beginning.

Where the helicopters chased us on the dirt bikes from Mexico...

...when we were smuggling the drugs.

...and I cut all that out of the movie too. It just didn't....

It wasn't the kind of excitement that I wanted.

--George. What are you gonne do now?

You promised these people, now.

You promised these people and you promised these people....

Hey! Hey, man, would you mind?

You just woke my friend up.

Yeah, well...

...I'm real sorry. I didn't realise I....

I didn't realise.

My head.

If you don't shut your mouth, you ain't gonna have a head!

I see you're up, Mr. Hansen. You'll feel a lot better after this.

Thank you, Bob.

I guess I-- I guess I really tied one on last night.

Must've had a hell of a good time.

I wish I could remember it.

Could you get me a cigarette?

You animals ain't smart enough to play with fire.

That's all right. They're good boys. You can give them a cigarette.

Thanks, mister.

-Got a match? -Yeah.

Thank you, Bob.

I'm sorry about the misunderstanding.

There was no misunderstanding. We're all in the same cage here.

You must be some important dude. That treatment--

"Dude"?

What does he mean, "dude"? Dude ranch?

-"Dude"? -No, no.

"Dude" means a nice guy, you know?

"Dude" means a regular person.

You don't look like you're from this part of the country.

You're lucky I'm here to see you don't get into anything.

-Anything?

...they got this here...

...scissor-happy, beautify-America thing here.

Trying to make everybody look like Yul Brynner.

They used rusty razor blades on the last two longhairs...

...they brought in. I wasn't here to protect them.

See...

...I'm a lawyer.

Done a lot of work for the ACLU.

George Hansen.

You think you can help us get out of here with no sweat?

I imagine that I can if you haven't killed anybody.

At least nobody white.

See there? $25. Not too bad for no razor blades.

You know what I mean?

-Very groovy. Thank you. -Very groovy.

See? I'll bet nobody ever said that to you.

By the way, thanks for the aspirin before.

I'm getting to....

I'm getting to think you're a regular "regular" here.

I'm not gonna tell your dad.

You just gotta be more careful.

That'd be good if the powers that be wouldn't hear about this.

The old man's not feeling good. Know what I mean?

Well, now, George, we won't tell your dad about that.

-Isn't that right? -That's right.

What do you say we....

The night before this next scene...

...which is in the night that we left Taos, New Mexico, was a weekend.

We went down to Las Vegas, New Mexico...

...to shoot the exterior of the jail...

...to shoot the exterior of the jail...

...which is this.

So this was after a day that Jack and I had spent at D. H. Lawrence's tomb.

D. H. Lawrence is buried in Taos, New Mexico.

But I love this whole thing...

...with the White House Club across the street on the wall there.

"Income tax."

"D. H. Lawrence."

So Jack and I had fallen asleep on D. H. Lawrence's tomb...

...the day before.

"Indians."

And we'd ended up at the hot springs that night with the Indians.

So that's where that line came from.

And the...was the guy that started the motorcycles...

...that fired up the motorcycles.

And he was a Hell's Angel. And every time he'd start them--

Because we didn't have starters in those days...

...you had to kick start them.

So he'd go, "Fire."

And it would turn over.

And Jack picked that up as a character thing.

"Madame Tinkertoy's House of Blue Lights.

Bourbon and Toulouse, New Orleans, Louisiana."

Now this is supposed to be the finest whorehouse in the South.

These ain't no pork chops. These are U.S. prime.

Out of sight, man.

Oh, I'd like to get over there.

How long did you boys say it would take you to get down there?

-Two or three days. -Two or three days?

ls that right?

-Boy, I sure wish I was going with you. -Yeah?

You got a helmet?

Oh, I've got a helmet. I got a beauty.

This song, "So You Want To Be A Bird," is by Shepard.

It was a group he had.

Sam Shepard. I believe he's the lead singer also.

And a playwright.

And that pork chop was a rubber pork chop that Jack had found...

“someplace on the side of the road that we'd stopped...

...to get gas.

This is all in New Mexico.

Between Coyote and Lindrith.

This is Georgia O'Keefe country...

...near Abiquiu.

Well, old buddy, I never thought I'd ever see you again.

You know, I threw this thing away one week ago.

My mother, of all people, retrieved it. I can't understand that.

She didn't want me to play football. Always afraid I'd get hurt.

And here, 12 years later, I find it on my pillow...

...with a note pinned next to it saying, "Save this for your son."

Fire.

Do this instead.

No, thanks. I got some store-bought here of my own.

No, man. This is grass.

-You mean marijuana? -Yeah.

Lord have mercy, is that what that is?

This is the first time that marijuana had ever been smoked in a movie...

...that the people who smoked it...

...didn't go out and kill a bunch of nurses or whatever.

But seemd to be a relatively passive drug.

Go ahead. Light it up.

Oh, no, no, no...

...I couldn't do that. I've got enough problems...

...with the booze and all. I can't afford to get hooked.

You won't get hooked.

Well, I know. But it leads to harder stuff.

You say it's all right?

Well, all right, then. How do I do it?

Here.

Well, that's got a real nice taste to it.

Though I don't suppose it'll do me much good.

I'm so used to the booze.

You've gotta hold it in your lungs longer.

What...

...was that, man? What the hell was that?

Jack will go through his speech...

...about the people here, working among us and so on and so forth.

And then suddenly he'll start laughing and he breaks up.

And then I have him start the scene again...

...and he goes through it straight this time.

Those were two cuts and I decided to do that when I was editing the picture.

It wasn't devised to be written that way.

Oh, yeah. I'm stoned, man. But, like, I saw a satellite.

And it was going across the sky, and it flashed three times at me...

...and zigzagged and whizzed off.

And I saw it.

That was a UFO beaming back at you.

Me and Eric Heisman was down in Mexico two weeks ago.

We seen 40 of them flying in formation.

They've got bases all over the world now.

They've been coming here ever since 1946...

...when scientists started bouncing radar beams off the moon.

And they've been living and working among us ever since.

The government knows all about them.

What are you talking, man?

You just seen one of them, didn't you?

I saw something, but I didn't see it working here.

Well, they are people, just like us...

...from within our own solar system.

Except that their society is more highly evolved.

They don't have no wars. They got no monetary system.

They don't have any leaders, because each man is a leader.

I mean, each man-- Because of their technology...

...they're able to feed, clothe, house and transport themselves...

...equally and with no effort.

You know something? You wanna know what I think?

I think this is a crackpot idea. That's what I think.

How about that?

Think it's a crackpot idea.

If they're so smart, why don't they reveal themselves...

...and get it over with?

Why don't they reveal themselves is because if they did...

...it'd cause a general panic.

Now, we still have leaders...

...upon whom we rely to release this information.

These leaders have decided to repress this information...

...because of the tremendous shock...

...that it would cause to our antiquated systems.

Now, the result of this has been that the Venusians...

...have contacted people at all walks of life...

Here's where he goes up...

...and he starts laughing.

So I cut that in as a reaction and then he goes and starts his speech again...

...from another take.

It would be a devastating blow to our antiquated systems.

Now Venusians are meeting with people in all walks of life...

...in an advisory capacity.

For once, man will have a godlike control...

...over his own destiny. He'll have a chance to transcend...

...and to evolve with some equality for all.

How's your joint, George?

Oh, my, I believe it went out.

I got to talking so much, I clean forgot about....

It went out.

Save it and we'll do it tomorrow morning first thing.

It gives you a whole new way of looking at the day.

Well, I sure could use that.

Yes, I sure could use a little of that.

Besides the thing of coming in and looking at the European films...

...the fact we had never been able to do anything outside the studio films...

...I was also coming out of abstract expressionism and pop art.

So a lot of my images, like the idea of the motorcycles...

...the idea of the American flag...

...the idea of me in buckskins...

...and Jack with his football helmet, all these things...

...were like symbols of a time that I'd lived.

And part of the pop culture...

...and the conflict between...

...the farm and the contemporary, the machine world.

I thought of, like, Louisiana as being a Tinkertoy, kind of...

...Huey Long built these bridges out of Tinkertoys.

And the fascination with death and, like, you know...

...all the cemeteries are above the ground...

...because the water level is so high.

I can't remember what holiday it was...

...that we were going through in the South...

...but they had all their flags out that day.

I noticed one of them was upside down and I thought that was interesting.

This one here.

This is Hendrix, "If Six Could Be Nine."

These are the old slave shacks of the South.

I'd come out of the civil rights movement with Martin Luther King...

...and marched from Selma to Montgomery...

...and been in the march on Washington...

...and seen a lot of terrible injustices because of race in the South.

I found this location. It was a wonderful location...

...because it had mirrors all along the side...

...and it allowed me being able to go in and isolate the people inside.

I had a person, a scout, that went on ahead and he....

I told him I didn't like little theatre groups, I didn't wanna see them.

But in every town he'd go to, he'd find a little theatre group.

And this place, Morganza, Louisiana...

...which this was about all they had, was this café.

You can see the mirror along the side.

Anyway, he had the little theatre group over on one side...

...and I saw these guys on the other, the real sheriff and these guys.

And I said, "I want those guys over there." He said:

"Are you crazy? Those're the lynch mob."

And I said, "Those are the guys I want."

And I also got the little girls here.

White shirt for me.

I said, like, you know:

"You know, you're attracted to these guys." She said, "You want us to flirt?"

They'd never acted before. And I said yeah.

Then I told the guys that we'd raped and killed a young girl outside of town.

There wouldn't be any problem...

...they could say anything they wanted about us and it would be justified.

So they started talking a bunch of racist stuff about...

...whatever.

But it was a great opportunity to be able to isolate each other.

Go into close shots here. I could shoot as much as I wanted on the others...

...and still keep us in the background.

And I like his eyes.

You know that girl over there in the corner?

Don't look too close because the sheriff's right over there.

You know what I mean?

-Check that joker with long hair. -I checked him.

We might have to bring him to the Hilton before it's over.

-I think she's cute. -Isn't she though?

We'll put him in a woman's cell.

We ought to put them in a cage and charge admission to see them.

Those are what are known as country witticisms.

I can't believe they're here.

I really got in trouble with this scene.

My out of the film was 20 minutes longer.

-Yeah, that'd be good. -I doubt it.

-I'm gonna ask them. -Be my guest.

Not when I'm around.

I don't think you're gonna.

-Go ahead. -Okay.

Go ahead.

I thought at first that bunch over there...

...their mothers were frightened by gorillas...

...but now I think they were caught.

I think one's Alley Oop...

...from the beads on him.

One of them darn sure is not Oola.

Look like a bunch of refugees from a gorilla love-in.

-A gorilla couldn't love that. -Nor could a mother.

I wish you could mate him up with one of those black wenches.

Oh, now, I don't know about that.

And that's about as low as they come, I'll tell you.

He's a biggie.

And they're green.

-No, they're not green, they're white. -White'?

You're colour-blind. I just gotta say that.

Sure like to get some food.

I thought jails were built for humanity, and that won't quite qualify.

-Wonder where they got those wigs. -They probably grew them.

-Nothing else would grow on them. -You know...

...I'm not real hungry at the moment.

You know what I mean?

I saw two of them one time just kissing away.

Two males. Think of it.

What should we do with them?

I don't know, but I don't think they'll make the parish line.

Let's split.

-Split? -Yeah.

Yes, sir.

It certainly has been nice.

They got fancy bikes. That's some Yankee queers.

Check the flag on that bike.

It sure is.

I still say they're not gonna make the parish line.

Hey, can I have a ride?

You want a ride?

You got a note from your moms?

Oh, our mothers won't mind.

Please let us have a ride.

I don't mind giving you a ride.

The man is at the window The man is at the window

The man is at the window

The man is at the window!

I'd love to take you girls for a ride.

You know...

...this used to be a hell of a good country.

I can't understand what's gone wrong with it.

Everybody got chicken, that's what.

We can't even get into a second-rate hotel.

I mean, a second-rate motel, you dig?

They think we'd out their throat. They're scared.

They're not scared of you.

They're scared of what you represent to them.

Hey, man. All we represent to them is somebody who needs a haircut.

Oh, no.

What you represent to them...

...is freedom.

Freedom's what it's all about.

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

But talking about it and being it...

...that's two different things.

It's real hard to be free...

...when you are bought and sold in the marketplace.

Don't tell anybody that they're not free, because they'll get busy...

...killing and maiming to prove to you that they are.

They're gonna talk to you and talk to you...

...about individual freedom.

But they see a free individual, it's gonna scare them.

Well, it don't make them running scared.

No. It makes them dangerous.

Swamp.

All right, man.

-Swamp. -Swamp.

Swamp.

-Swamp. -Swamp.

Do you ever....

You ever talk to bullfrogs in the middle of the night?

Not generally.

-You don't? -No, man.

You know what I used to do?

What did you used to do?

One thing I didn't used to do...

...is talk to bullfrogs in the middle of the night, foolish.

You're out of your mind!

That's right.

Hey, man. Hey, man.

Oh, man. Hey, man.

You okay? Oh, no.

Oh, God.

What are we gonna do with his stuff, man?

Get it to his folks somehow.

There's not much here, man.

There's some money, and there's his driver's licence.

Here's his card, man.

He ain't gonna be using that.

We'll go there for just one drink, man.

This scene and the whorehouse scene in New Orleans...

...was the way we started with the commune scene in Los Angeles.

When we first started the film we shot it in L.A.

No, man, now really. He would've wanted us to, man.

This is an old house I found in the Hollywood Hills.

It was actually decorated like this. I didn't do anything to it.

"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him."

That's a humdinger.

I'm getting a little smashed, man.

A little smashed.

These passages that he's reading were actually written in the room.

I incorporated them into the film.

And this is where we have our flash-forward to the end of the film...

...when Peter looks up...

...and reads one of these quotations.

Chicks, man.

Look at those chicks, man.

Come on, man.

Hey.

Hey.

This is Karen Black...

...and Toni Basil.

Karen would go on later to star...

...in Five Easy Pieces, Bob Rafelson's film with Jack Nicholson.

And Toni Basil...

...would go on to choreograph some great musical numbers...

...and MTV things...

...and have a couple of hit songs.

Come on, you little Hereford. Get yourself over here.

You old thing, you.

I'm really from New York. This is all just a weird act.

You're a freak, aren't you?

My name is Mary.

-You want a drink, Mary? -No, thanks.

What's--? What's this?

-ls this really your hair? -What is this?

ls this really your hair? Are you kidding me?

-What are these things? -What are these things, huh?

I'm kind of a freak myself.

I never really thought of myself as a freak.

But I'd love to freak.

What's happening outside?

What?

You know, in the street. Mardi Gras.

Well, you know, it's crowded and all that.

Yeah.

Hey, you want a drink?

Here's to you.

Thank you.

What's the matter? Don't you like me?

What?

You paid for me, right?

That was for my friend.

I don't....

I'll buy you a drink.

I don't drink.

I've got an idea.

Let's go outside.

Yup.

We'll all go to Mardi Gras.

"Okay "Okay?

This is the that stuff we'd shot in 16 millimeter...

...months before.

When we had no script.

All I knew was that we were gonna take an acid trip...

...in the cemetery...

...and that Orson Welles had failed here trying to shoot Mardi Gras.

And it was a nightmare.

I had five friends with me who all wanted to be directors...

...and all had 16 millimeter cameras.

I told them not to shoot any footage until I told them to.

Boy, was that out of control.

But we got it done.

I ended up just myself...

...and Les Blank in the cemetery. Everybody else had left...

...for the cemetery sequence.

A lot of this footage was shot by Barry Feinstein.

-Hey. -What's that?

What's that?

Never mind. Just shut up and take it.

Yeah, right.

This is an incredible shot. It was an overcast day...

...and everybody was using umbrellas...

...because it was drizzling all the time.

And I had the camera go up after we take the acid here...

...go off us and go up the side of this crypt and keep going up into the sky.

There was no sun visible.

Suddenly when you get to the top of this...

...you see the energy of the sun like a flamethrower come through...

...and blank out the screen.

It's really an amazing shot. It's at the end of these.

You start seeing these things going up...

...the light shaft on the right coming across.

So I actually really filmed the energy of the sun...

...coming down as a great flamethrower.

A lot of the great nebulae come every 1 1 years from the sun.

Look at it right now.

As it flares across. Look at that, there it is.

Amazing.

And in Jesus Christ, His only son, our Lord--

-Shut up. -Conceived by the Holy Ghost...

...born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate...

...was crucified, died and was buried. He descended into hell.

The third day, he rose from the dead.

He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God.

He shall come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy Catholic Church...

...communion of saints, forgiveness of sins...

It says things in the Gospel.

If you do not love your mother and father the way I love mine...

...you'll not be worthy to be disciple to me.

If you do not hate them the way I hate them...

...you will not be worthy to be disciple to me.

And until you become as little children and take your clothes off...

...you will not know the Kingdom.

Listen to me. I want you to be beautiful.

He says, when He comes back again, He'll make merry...

...like you men, and He shall be able to enjoy the things you men...

...love and enjoy.

Come back!

And that He's come to guard the world till He sets the world afire.

For He is the fire, He is the light that is above them all.

He is the all. The all came forth from Him and the all is attained to Him.

Make me loveable.

And when you make a hand in place of a hand and a foot in place of a foot...

...and an image in place of an image...

...then you'll know the Kingdom, enter the light...

...and how much will you bear when you enter the light.

For He guards the world till the world is set afire.

Look at them. We're all aglow.

Look at us. We're all aglow! Look. Glow, glow, glow!

Mainly that was the basis of this cemetery sequence.

I don't know why I like you.

-I don't even know if I like you. -I know I like you.

I know I like you.

Don't you dare! Don't you dare!

I can feel the outside.

I can feel the outside but I can't--

I can't feel the inside. Okay?

Don't stop! Don't stop! I'm dying!

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

I'm dead.

I'm dead. Do you understand?

Mary loved....

Oh, dear God, please let it be! Please help me conceive a child!

I'm right out here.

I'm right out here. I'm right out here.

I'm right here, out of my head.

I'm conceiving!

Please, God, let me out of here!

I wanna get out of here.

Do you know what I mean?

You wanted me ugly, didn't you? I know you, John.

I hate you so much.

You never knew about me.

Why did you leave like that? Everybody else, but not you.

I had Peter talking to his dead mother...

...which I knew something about, to evoke emotion from him.

I put him on a statue that looked like the Statue of Liberty to me...

...and he's asking his mother why she left him...

...why she was nothing but a piece of paper to him...

...and how much he hated her.

She had committed suicide.

This is one of my favourite sequences, those shots that we just went through.

The abstractions going by, the mansions in the South...

...and, like, shooting and straight on and juxtaposing them...

...with the industrial wasteland and with the swamps.

And crossing this bridge and back-cutting, back-cutting.

There was a film that a friend of mine made, Bruce Conner...

...about the assassination of Kennedy...

...where Jackie Kennedy keeps getting to the door...

...and almost getting to the door and he keeps back-cutting.

And I tried to use that as we cross the bridge.

We've done it. We've done it.

We're rich, Wyatt.

Yeah, man.

Yeah.

We did it, man! We did it.

We're rich, man.

We're retired in Florida now, mister.

You know, Billy...

...we blew it.

What?

Well, that's what it's all about. Like, you know.

You go for the big money, and then you're free.

You dig?

We blew it.

Good night, man.

I mean, the two outlaws who'd gone for the big money...

...gotten rich, the American dream...

...but in point of fact they'd undermined their country and were destroying it.

And that was the story to me.

They had lost sight of their freedom.

It's not about getting rich and going for the big money and retiring in Florida...

...but is about keeping the freedom.

You see, I keep back-cutting here.

I keep going backwards and forwards, and forwards, but I keep going back.

And I keep reversing directions.

The two guys that kill us at the end is the way I found most of the actors.

We didn't take them along with us, just found them on the road.

We were getting gas in the morning and I said:

"The man with the goitre on the side with the other man"

I told Paul Lewis, I said, "I'd like those two guys to be the killers."

We got them.

Look at them ginks.

Pull alongside. We'll scare the hell out of them.

I had wanted to use Bob Dylan's song that we just heard...

..."It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)"...

...I wanted to use that as the end song...

...but when I showed it to Dylan, he didn't want me to use it.

Why don't you get a haircut?

And he wrote the thing which became the "Ballad of Easy Rider."

He wrote it on a piece of paper, "Take me from this town to some other--

Take me from this river to some other town."

He wrote it on paper, he said: "Give this to Roger McGuinn.

Tell him to put some music to it."

Billy.

Oh, my God!

-I'm going for help! -I got them. I'm gonna get them.

We built a ramp for Peter's bike so that the stuntman, Tex, jumped off...

...just as he pulled the device to blow off the front tyre...

...when you see Peter's bike go off and the front tyre goes out.

And we used a helicopter at the end to go up for the fire.

And when they shot me, I had them shoot into a plastic--

Shoot pellets that exploded on this sheet of plastic...

...when they blew me away.

That one too.

These're the words that Dylan wrote...

...that I gave to McGuinn to put the music to.

This title song.

"Ballad of Easy Rider."