All language subtitles for Easy.Rider.1969.CC.Bluray.1080p.DTS-HD.x264-Grym.comm.eng

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."