Spectator Identification within Five Easy Pieces
This paper will describe some of the possible meanings that might have arisen in audiences after Bob Rafelson’s Five Easy Pieces premiered on September 11, 1970 in New York City. Five Easy Pieces’ depiction of the class conflicts and social concerns during the late 1960s and early 1970s produced a diverse collection of identifications between the film’s characters and the audiences of 1970. This argument will be accompanied by a detailed look at three scenes from the film.
In probably one of the most memorable scenes, Jack Nicholson and party have stopped in at a diner for lunch. After ordering a plain omelet with a side order of toast and coffee, the waitress tell him that they do not serve side orders of toast. He becomes confused as the waitress explains the rules of the diner. Despite his efforts he is only met with statements such as “I don’t make the rules,” and “Do you see that sign?” After being asked to leave, he clears the table with his arm sending glasses everywhere. This protest appealed to a large audience, as it pointed out some of the absurdities of daily life enforced by “management.” Here, Nicholson could have been seen as a rebellious hero from different perspectives as he embodies more than one stereotype of the decade.
First, he is glorified by the counter culture with his rebellion against any form of institution. The desire to withstand control was very strong within the youths of America as the film’s debut occurred only a few months after the shootings at Kent State University. During early May, many students protested the war in Vietnam and its expansion into Cambodia by writing letters to President Nixon and protesting in sit-ins and rallies. After their efforts went unnoticed, the students turned to violence to express their demands by burning an ROTC building to the ground. The National Guard arrived the next day and broke up a rally, resulting in the unnecessary killings of four students. The National Guard responded by claiming that the soldiers were attacked by a student sniper but later stated that they were unable to find any evidence to support that claim.[1] The President also showed no remorse for the event saying, “…[these deaths] should remind us all once again that when dissent turns to violence it invites tragedy….”[2] The responses of the President and the National Guard were unsympathetic to the events at Kent State and only generated more outrage causing more students and schools to go on strike. The actions at Kent State sent up to 448 schools across the country to go on strike.[3] These protests continued throughout May and well into the summer.
Secondly, Nicholson’s actions also met by encouragement from the construction workers of that time by portraying an oil rigger from California, who does in fact wear a hard hat and who enjoys the blue-collar life. Many workers could have accepted his protest against the waitress and his attitude towards the hitchhiker Palm. In September of 1970, many construction workers would have still remembered the “Hard Hat Riots” that occurred earlier that year. These riots consisted of a large group of construction workers disrupting a rally of students against the Vietnam War by attacking “…those youths with the most hair and swatting them with their helmets.”[4] After dispersing the crowd, they then turned on the police accusing them of being unpatriotic by allowing these youths to protest. The actions of these workers could have materialized during the viewing of this scene as Nicholson opposes the management as well as the counter culture. When the waitress asks if he would like to talk to the management, Palm rises up to confront the waitress but is thwarted and disposed of by Nicholson with a simple, “Shut up.” Before this scene, the audience meets Palm and her bond to the hippie ideals of the sixties. The blue-collar audience member would have noticed that in one of the only confrontations between hippies and labourers, the blue collar won.
The wide ranges of responses produced by this scene are accentuated by the angling and composition of this scene. The scene is composed of Nicholson and the women at lower level and the waitress standing above them. The scene remains at a medium shot as the waitress points out the rules on the menu, but as soon as she begins to show attitude by stating he can order only what is on the menu, the shot changes to a close-up from a low angle visually showing her power over the others. A medium shot returns as Nicholson attempts to be polite, but then jumps to a shot/reverse shot of Nicholson and the waitress as they fight for control of the situation. This visual construction of oppression and jockeying for control can enforce the response by either the youths or construction workers. At the end of the fight, Nicholson sweeps the table in a surge of violence, expressive of both responses, in its visual chaos of the glasses and water flying across the screen. During the shot/reverse shot, Palm rises up and the camera follows hers. This is the only motion of the entire scene. As Palm, the stereotypical hippie and visual representation of the counter culture, tries to fight for the rights of that culture, Nicholson abruptly stops this movement with relative ease. This composition of shots would display to the blue-collar audience the ability to control this new counter culture of the seventies.
While the new counter culture was integrating itself into society through submission, they were also submitting their ideals and concerns about the country. The audiences of 1970 were well aware of the growing environmental and economic problems that were developing. In Five Easy Pieces’ Bobby and Rayette pick up two hitchhikers on their way to Washington. One of them named Palm Apodaca, played by Helena Kallianiotes, is heading to Alaska to get away from the filth and crap that is destroying America. She worries about the amounting garbage and junk that is accumulating in households and the problems of mass production. She thinks that “Man” should throw all of their possessions and garbage into a hole and burn them. Palm also blames humankind’s inability to clean up after themselves as the problem of all the filth in America. Her rant on the decay of America continues after they leave the diner.
Palm’s assessment of the environmental concerns of that year would be very influential on the audiences’ reception of the movie due to her accuracy. Many spectators would have understood her plight as pollution became a growing concern. Throughout July of the film’s year of release, New York City’s air quality was deemed ‘Unsatisfactory by the Department of Air Resources, which used to be called Pollution Control.[5] Many believed autos to be the source of this pollution, including Senator Gaylord Nelson who thought that an outlaw on the internal combustion engine by 1975 would be effective. In late September, a bill unanimously passed stating that standards for Air Pollution Control would be raised by the year 1975. At one point in the film, Palm mentions a steam-powered car that would solve the filth problem. While today this might seem as a pipe dream for a film of the seventies, Detroit had created working prototype models for the integration of steam into the automotive industry.[6] Ironically, the integration of steam and alternate power sources was rivaled by the oil industry, for whom Nicholson’s character works. Another connection between the film and real life events is Palm’s belief that “they” will not allow the steam car to be sold. Senator Nelson also acknowledged that conspiracy theory of a government keeping technology and secrets from us.
“The entire automotive industry was engaged in an
illegal conspiracy from 1953 to 1968 to delay the development
and installation of air pollution control equipment on motor
vehicles . . . .The public is justified in having grave doubts
about the sincerity of the automotive industry in its ever
taking significant action in dealing with the emissions from
the internal combustion engine, which account for some 60
percent of the nation’s air pollution problem and up to 90
percent in some metropolitan areas.”[7]
Helena Kallianotes’ character also worries about the large accumulation of crap in households and streets. The abundance of technological gadgets, like a disposal, the abundance of garbage, like the coke bottles, and street litter, her mention of the signs, are like the pollution situation, being a known concern to audiences. Supporters of the world that Kallianotes represents would view the movie as an honest depiction of the present world including many whistleblower scenes such as this one. In August of 1970, the National Industrial Conference Board conducted a survey of consumer moods and discovered that while mass production is rising, the desire among consumers to purchase a new car or home is falling. “The falling off in spending expectations from a year [since 1970] ranges from 10 percent on major appliances through 30 percent on new automobiles to 47 percent on new homes.”[8] Already an abundance of garbage and technological junk has shown itself to the public, as well as the universe. “More than 1800 objects were actually adrift in August 1970. Of that number more than 1400 were classified by NORAD as ‘Earth-orbiting debris.’”[9] Mostly consisting of retired space equipment and malfunctioning space probes and satellites.
All of the relevant discoveries would have allowed the audience to see Palm as an example of the counter culture in the right. The rebellious section of the audience would have been empowered by Palm’s speech, and perhaps taking her advice of moving to Alaska, which is a possibility of the unknown cold climate that Nicholson ventures to at the end of the film. The audience would have accepted her as credible female since she is presented as the only woman in the movie that does not adapt to another’s influence.
On the other hand, those who are politically opposed to the ideals of Palm and not caught up in her words would be able to see the film’s sarcastic approach to her. While her words express the counter culture of the 1970s, the film turns her speech into a running gag with the frequent repetition of “I don’t even want to talk about it,” and the twangy country music that intercuts each argument. Her dismissal in the diner by Nicholson shows her lack of agency within the film, and her inability to remember the word steam, the word to describe hot air. Another factor that might influence the audience’s reception is the portrayal of her motives and desires. Our first introduction to Palm tells the audience that she is going to Alaska where she thinks it is cleaner, since it looked very white in photographs. While Palm continues her rant about garbage, filth and the stink of man, she smokes for the majority. Smoking creates toxins that can affect the air though they are not as bad as automobiles, and cigarettes create a longing odour that is hard to remove. Cigarette butts are also some of the most common pieces of litter, as well as some of the slowest to bio-degrade. The oppositions contained within the audiences’ views on Palm are similar to the overall reception of Nicholson’s character Robert “Bobby” Dupea.
The film’s main plot revolves around Bobby’s return home to see his dying, nearly comatose father. The moment of stability in the plot arises when Bobby pushes his wheelchair-ridden father into a field and explains what has happened to him since he left home. He explains his nomadic tendency, and that he is not necessarily searching for anything, but mostly just running from bad situations. In this scene, Bobby finally displays some ‘inner emotion’ that has been previously avoided or denied. Bobby speaks to his father in a speech or monologue due to his father’s muteness. This scene is the explanation behind Bobby’s actions thus far in the film. At this point, the audience is given an option as to believe his apology to his father, or if he is still soulless inside. Critics and fans divided on the level of identification with the film. Many spectators considered Nicholson’s Bobby to be “…the quintessential modern man who is incapable of love.”[10] Many saw Bobby is fleeing from his “auspicious beginnings” as a true and honest depiction of their very lives, that was all too familiar to them.
Roger Greenspun and Peter Schjeldahl, critics for The New York Times, considered the movie quite poor with the exception of a few scenes. They acknowledged that the label of a ‘road movie,’ including the tagline “He rode the fast lane on the road to nowhere,” the journey between California and Washington only secures about 14 minutes of the film[11]. They also criticized the film on its ambiguous ending that did not serve a purpose, other than to fit in with the other sarcastic, ambiguous, American movies of that time.[12] Fans disagreed with their reception of the film claiming that the ending was obvious in the characters’ desires and motives for being a wanderer. So many people wrote in that the New York Times published an article called “‘Pieces’ Is So ‘Easy’ to Love,” consisting entirely of replies to the editor. One wrote, “As a matter of fact, I feel the story lends itself to the American Scene today and one could clearly identify with the characters portrayed.”[13] It must be said that this paper can only touch upon some of the possible interpretations that could have arisen from audiences of that time. While some news events have been used to describe the reception of this movie from the viewpoint of a counter culturist, a blue-collar worker, a film critic and an everyday film spectator, some news events have been passed or omitted due to the limits of the available research materials. From the available materials that have been analyzed it can be said that Five Easy Pieces’ depiction of class representation and the environmental concerns during the late 1960s and early 1970s produced a wide range of identifications between the film’s characters and the audiences of 1970. By analyzing the infamous ‘toast’ scene, Helena Kallianotes’ characterization of the “counter-culture” and the confrontation between Bobby and his father, we have seen where audiences might have generated these responses.
[1] Kifner, 1+.
[2] “Death on the Campus,” 42.
[3] Charlton, 19.
[4] Bigart, 4+.
[5] Kempton, 122.
[6]
[7]
[8] Kempton, 122.
[9]
[10] Diane Crothers Letter to the Editor in “‘Pieces’ Is So ‘Easy’ to Love,” 199+.
[11] Schjeldahl, X13.
[12] Greenspun, 26.
[13] “‘Pieces’ Is So ‘Easy’ to Love,” 119+.
In probably one of the most memorable scenes, Jack Nicholson and party have stopped in at a diner for lunch. After ordering a plain omelet with a side order of toast and coffee, the waitress tell him that they do not serve side orders of toast. He becomes confused as the waitress explains the rules of the diner. Despite his efforts he is only met with statements such as “I don’t make the rules,” and “Do you see that sign?” After being asked to leave, he clears the table with his arm sending glasses everywhere. This protest appealed to a large audience, as it pointed out some of the absurdities of daily life enforced by “management.” Here, Nicholson could have been seen as a rebellious hero from different perspectives as he embodies more than one stereotype of the decade.
First, he is glorified by the counter culture with his rebellion against any form of institution. The desire to withstand control was very strong within the youths of America as the film’s debut occurred only a few months after the shootings at Kent State University. During early May, many students protested the war in Vietnam and its expansion into Cambodia by writing letters to President Nixon and protesting in sit-ins and rallies. After their efforts went unnoticed, the students turned to violence to express their demands by burning an ROTC building to the ground. The National Guard arrived the next day and broke up a rally, resulting in the unnecessary killings of four students. The National Guard responded by claiming that the soldiers were attacked by a student sniper but later stated that they were unable to find any evidence to support that claim.[1] The President also showed no remorse for the event saying, “…[these deaths] should remind us all once again that when dissent turns to violence it invites tragedy….”[2] The responses of the President and the National Guard were unsympathetic to the events at Kent State and only generated more outrage causing more students and schools to go on strike. The actions at Kent State sent up to 448 schools across the country to go on strike.[3] These protests continued throughout May and well into the summer.
Secondly, Nicholson’s actions also met by encouragement from the construction workers of that time by portraying an oil rigger from California, who does in fact wear a hard hat and who enjoys the blue-collar life. Many workers could have accepted his protest against the waitress and his attitude towards the hitchhiker Palm. In September of 1970, many construction workers would have still remembered the “Hard Hat Riots” that occurred earlier that year. These riots consisted of a large group of construction workers disrupting a rally of students against the Vietnam War by attacking “…those youths with the most hair and swatting them with their helmets.”[4] After dispersing the crowd, they then turned on the police accusing them of being unpatriotic by allowing these youths to protest. The actions of these workers could have materialized during the viewing of this scene as Nicholson opposes the management as well as the counter culture. When the waitress asks if he would like to talk to the management, Palm rises up to confront the waitress but is thwarted and disposed of by Nicholson with a simple, “Shut up.” Before this scene, the audience meets Palm and her bond to the hippie ideals of the sixties. The blue-collar audience member would have noticed that in one of the only confrontations between hippies and labourers, the blue collar won.
The wide ranges of responses produced by this scene are accentuated by the angling and composition of this scene. The scene is composed of Nicholson and the women at lower level and the waitress standing above them. The scene remains at a medium shot as the waitress points out the rules on the menu, but as soon as she begins to show attitude by stating he can order only what is on the menu, the shot changes to a close-up from a low angle visually showing her power over the others. A medium shot returns as Nicholson attempts to be polite, but then jumps to a shot/reverse shot of Nicholson and the waitress as they fight for control of the situation. This visual construction of oppression and jockeying for control can enforce the response by either the youths or construction workers. At the end of the fight, Nicholson sweeps the table in a surge of violence, expressive of both responses, in its visual chaos of the glasses and water flying across the screen. During the shot/reverse shot, Palm rises up and the camera follows hers. This is the only motion of the entire scene. As Palm, the stereotypical hippie and visual representation of the counter culture, tries to fight for the rights of that culture, Nicholson abruptly stops this movement with relative ease. This composition of shots would display to the blue-collar audience the ability to control this new counter culture of the seventies.
While the new counter culture was integrating itself into society through submission, they were also submitting their ideals and concerns about the country. The audiences of 1970 were well aware of the growing environmental and economic problems that were developing. In Five Easy Pieces’ Bobby and Rayette pick up two hitchhikers on their way to Washington. One of them named Palm Apodaca, played by Helena Kallianiotes, is heading to Alaska to get away from the filth and crap that is destroying America. She worries about the amounting garbage and junk that is accumulating in households and the problems of mass production. She thinks that “Man” should throw all of their possessions and garbage into a hole and burn them. Palm also blames humankind’s inability to clean up after themselves as the problem of all the filth in America. Her rant on the decay of America continues after they leave the diner.
Palm’s assessment of the environmental concerns of that year would be very influential on the audiences’ reception of the movie due to her accuracy. Many spectators would have understood her plight as pollution became a growing concern. Throughout July of the film’s year of release, New York City’s air quality was deemed ‘Unsatisfactory by the Department of Air Resources, which used to be called Pollution Control.[5] Many believed autos to be the source of this pollution, including Senator Gaylord Nelson who thought that an outlaw on the internal combustion engine by 1975 would be effective. In late September, a bill unanimously passed stating that standards for Air Pollution Control would be raised by the year 1975. At one point in the film, Palm mentions a steam-powered car that would solve the filth problem. While today this might seem as a pipe dream for a film of the seventies, Detroit had created working prototype models for the integration of steam into the automotive industry.[6] Ironically, the integration of steam and alternate power sources was rivaled by the oil industry, for whom Nicholson’s character works. Another connection between the film and real life events is Palm’s belief that “they” will not allow the steam car to be sold. Senator Nelson also acknowledged that conspiracy theory of a government keeping technology and secrets from us.
“The entire automotive industry was engaged in an
illegal conspiracy from 1953 to 1968 to delay the development
and installation of air pollution control equipment on motor
vehicles . . . .The public is justified in having grave doubts
about the sincerity of the automotive industry in its ever
taking significant action in dealing with the emissions from
the internal combustion engine, which account for some 60
percent of the nation’s air pollution problem and up to 90
percent in some metropolitan areas.”[7]
Helena Kallianotes’ character also worries about the large accumulation of crap in households and streets. The abundance of technological gadgets, like a disposal, the abundance of garbage, like the coke bottles, and street litter, her mention of the signs, are like the pollution situation, being a known concern to audiences. Supporters of the world that Kallianotes represents would view the movie as an honest depiction of the present world including many whistleblower scenes such as this one. In August of 1970, the National Industrial Conference Board conducted a survey of consumer moods and discovered that while mass production is rising, the desire among consumers to purchase a new car or home is falling. “The falling off in spending expectations from a year [since 1970] ranges from 10 percent on major appliances through 30 percent on new automobiles to 47 percent on new homes.”[8] Already an abundance of garbage and technological junk has shown itself to the public, as well as the universe. “More than 1800 objects were actually adrift in August 1970. Of that number more than 1400 were classified by NORAD as ‘Earth-orbiting debris.’”[9] Mostly consisting of retired space equipment and malfunctioning space probes and satellites.
All of the relevant discoveries would have allowed the audience to see Palm as an example of the counter culture in the right. The rebellious section of the audience would have been empowered by Palm’s speech, and perhaps taking her advice of moving to Alaska, which is a possibility of the unknown cold climate that Nicholson ventures to at the end of the film. The audience would have accepted her as credible female since she is presented as the only woman in the movie that does not adapt to another’s influence.
On the other hand, those who are politically opposed to the ideals of Palm and not caught up in her words would be able to see the film’s sarcastic approach to her. While her words express the counter culture of the 1970s, the film turns her speech into a running gag with the frequent repetition of “I don’t even want to talk about it,” and the twangy country music that intercuts each argument. Her dismissal in the diner by Nicholson shows her lack of agency within the film, and her inability to remember the word steam, the word to describe hot air. Another factor that might influence the audience’s reception is the portrayal of her motives and desires. Our first introduction to Palm tells the audience that she is going to Alaska where she thinks it is cleaner, since it looked very white in photographs. While Palm continues her rant about garbage, filth and the stink of man, she smokes for the majority. Smoking creates toxins that can affect the air though they are not as bad as automobiles, and cigarettes create a longing odour that is hard to remove. Cigarette butts are also some of the most common pieces of litter, as well as some of the slowest to bio-degrade. The oppositions contained within the audiences’ views on Palm are similar to the overall reception of Nicholson’s character Robert “Bobby” Dupea.
The film’s main plot revolves around Bobby’s return home to see his dying, nearly comatose father. The moment of stability in the plot arises when Bobby pushes his wheelchair-ridden father into a field and explains what has happened to him since he left home. He explains his nomadic tendency, and that he is not necessarily searching for anything, but mostly just running from bad situations. In this scene, Bobby finally displays some ‘inner emotion’ that has been previously avoided or denied. Bobby speaks to his father in a speech or monologue due to his father’s muteness. This scene is the explanation behind Bobby’s actions thus far in the film. At this point, the audience is given an option as to believe his apology to his father, or if he is still soulless inside. Critics and fans divided on the level of identification with the film. Many spectators considered Nicholson’s Bobby to be “…the quintessential modern man who is incapable of love.”[10] Many saw Bobby is fleeing from his “auspicious beginnings” as a true and honest depiction of their very lives, that was all too familiar to them.
Roger Greenspun and Peter Schjeldahl, critics for The New York Times, considered the movie quite poor with the exception of a few scenes. They acknowledged that the label of a ‘road movie,’ including the tagline “He rode the fast lane on the road to nowhere,” the journey between California and Washington only secures about 14 minutes of the film[11]. They also criticized the film on its ambiguous ending that did not serve a purpose, other than to fit in with the other sarcastic, ambiguous, American movies of that time.[12] Fans disagreed with their reception of the film claiming that the ending was obvious in the characters’ desires and motives for being a wanderer. So many people wrote in that the New York Times published an article called “‘Pieces’ Is So ‘Easy’ to Love,” consisting entirely of replies to the editor. One wrote, “As a matter of fact, I feel the story lends itself to the American Scene today and one could clearly identify with the characters portrayed.”[13] It must be said that this paper can only touch upon some of the possible interpretations that could have arisen from audiences of that time. While some news events have been used to describe the reception of this movie from the viewpoint of a counter culturist, a blue-collar worker, a film critic and an everyday film spectator, some news events have been passed or omitted due to the limits of the available research materials. From the available materials that have been analyzed it can be said that Five Easy Pieces’ depiction of class representation and the environmental concerns during the late 1960s and early 1970s produced a wide range of identifications between the film’s characters and the audiences of 1970. By analyzing the infamous ‘toast’ scene, Helena Kallianotes’ characterization of the “counter-culture” and the confrontation between Bobby and his father, we have seen where audiences might have generated these responses.
[1] Kifner, 1+.
[2] “Death on the Campus,” 42.
[3] Charlton, 19.
[4] Bigart, 4+.
[5] Kempton, 122.
[6]
[7]
[8] Kempton, 122.
[9]
[10] Diane Crothers Letter to the Editor in “‘Pieces’ Is So ‘Easy’ to Love,” 199+.
[11] Schjeldahl, X13.
[12] Greenspun, 26.
[13] “‘Pieces’ Is So ‘Easy’ to Love,” 119+.
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