Patton

This 43^rd Annual Academy Award Best Picture winner follows US Army General George S. Patton, played by George C. Scott, through his controversial, but ultimately praised World War II career. As a tank commander, Patton works his way from North Africa to the war’s end in Europe, earning fear from the Axis and resentment from the Allies. His ability to fulfill what he believes to be his destiny is jeopardized after a temper-fueled incident forces him out of lead command during the Normandy Invasion.

However, another film was released in 1970, and it deserves another look. “Five Easy Pieces,” directed by Bob Rafelson, stars Jack Nicholson as Bobby Dupea, a rebellious and well-educated wanderer who gave up a possible career as a concert pianist and is currnenlty working on an oil-rig in California. He lives with, but isn’t really attached to his ditzy, good-hearted girlfriend, played by Karen Black. When Bobby gets word that his father has taken a turn for the worse, he is forced to return to his home and the commune of upper-class family members that live and study music there. This change in his day-to-day affords him yet another excuse to pull out of his current situation in life and begin pursuing a new path. As he spends more and more time back home, he is forced to face his father and family, as well as his life’s decisions and failures. With this exposure, Bobby subconsciously gives himself an ultimatum to either continue running from himself and situations or to find stability and connection with others.

If you watch the film counting how many times Bobby presents his “skills” as a pianist, hoping he’ll hit number five before the credits roll, you’re in for a disappointment. His pieces are internal and barely add up to create the portrait of a full man. He is a fractured soul, broken by years of disappointment, anger and emotional solitude. Each of these five pieces holds its own contradiction: a man who would violently push away an excited girlfriend, only to bark back at a stranger in her defense; a man who breaks his back working in an oil field, only to turn around and insult his friend and coworker with, “It's ridiculous. I'm sitting here listening to some cracker a--hole, lives in a trailer park, compare his life to mine." As we are gradually introduced to the different pieces of Bobby, we become more and more confused. In our confusion, we are closest to fully understanding him. This puts us right in his shoes. We are lost.

Most character-study films let their protagonist drive the plot forward from the norm, through the interruption of the status-quo, and finally toward the resolution. But there is no normalcy to be found in Bobby’s life. And Bobby ain’t at the wheel. This film’s plot spins around its protagonist, and he seems increasingly aware of that lack of control, but is still unable or unwilling to do anything about it.

Apart from this film, only two other movies held scenes that have forced me to tears. The first being Tom Hanks losing his volleyball in “Cast Away,” and the second being Bill Murray’s Dali Lama speech in “Caddyshack.” The first struck an unexpected and horrifying chord regarding loss, loneliness and trepidation in the face of the great unknown. The latter found dark humor and randomness in delusion.  Bobby’s journey through “Five Easy Pieces” hits all of these notes, simultaneously. 

There are two deafening moments at this film’s end: the silence of Bobby’s glare into a gas station's bathroom mirror, and the roar of a departing semi truck. And the last words we hear are of Bobby whispering to himself, in what could be assumed to be a lifelong mantra that only helps to aid his detached, distanced submission to the spiraling world around him, “I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine…”

This film looks forward, in style and substance, just when American cinema needed it the most. Looking back, especially in an effort to understand and expose ourselves to the horrors and triumphs of the Second World War, is an admirable and valued endeavor. “Patton” does this excellently. But America wasn’t in the midst of a particularly admirable or valued war in 1970. Cinematic expression was about to explode in a mainly independently-funded blitzkrieg of uncompromising, intimate, experimental, and sometimes exploitive expression of American culture. 

It was a decade that birthed “The Godfather,” “The Deer Hunter,” “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Taxi Driver.” “Five Easy Pieces” knew the score and helped get the ball rolling. It shows the desolation of a man stuck in time, but symbolizes the momentum that would become 70s cinema.