Five Easy Pieces: A Short Analysis and Admiration

Five Easy Pieces- (1970) Jack Nicholson and Karen Black, Directed by Bob Rafelson.

I had no idea that the title meant five of Beethoven’s musical compositions. But this film is definitely a haunting and sensitive story of a man who had so much self-loathing that he has to keep escaping any situation he finds himself in. It’s also his own disillusionment about his upper-middle class and educated upbringing and ambivalence that made him bounce from job to job and to want to pretend that he’s a working-class joe-six pack like everyone else—making him more legit with his street-cred, rather than being seen as a failed classical pianist.

Nicholson who plays Robert Eroica Dupea, doesn’t mince words. He’s intolerant of dishonesty, sweet-things, and he’s angry at the world. He degrades his floozy waitress girlfriend, Rayette (played by a wonderfully pathetic and touching Karen Black) and mechanically sleeps with one hooker to the next. It all builds to the film’s unforgettable climax where he has to return home and face his dying father and his forgotten past, only to realize literally, as a pianist he’s failed, except for the five easy pieces, compositions that had been “easy” for him.

The film’s devastating and clinical ending of Robert leaving Rayette behind at a gas station and hitchhiking into a truck symbolizes a wistful and sad truthfulness that most of us can relate to: the desire to keep escaping lives we don’t wish to lead. Though he has decided to leave his pregnant girlfriend behind to abruptly start a new life, he admire and applaud him for having the guts to do so; even at the expense of those who truly cared for him. It’s also a metaphor for the brutal realities and violence of the 1960s seeping over into the beginning of the 1970s, the uncertainties of the Vietnam conflict, of escape is what everyone wished to enact. It’s truly an unforgettable film.

Film Review--Blue Valentine (2010)

I feel as if though Blue Valentine (2010) starring Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling, in a perfect world who absolutely deserve Best Actor and Actress Oscar nominations (I still feel Annette Bening is the best female performance of 2010 in The Kids Are All Right); has hit me hard with a sledgehammer.

Mr. Gosling's character, Dean is a man who is still trapped in the first stages of love. He's charming, goofy, and a dreamer. He's content with being a blue-collar man working odd jobs such as carpentry and painting houses and coming home to a wife, his kid and a cold beer. He obviously hasn't advanced very much, and it's driving his wife, Cindy (Michelle Williams) absolutely crazy. The film cuts back in forth during their six painful years of how and when they met; and how they are now unable to reconcile their differences.

In contrast to Dean, Cindy would like to advance. She's ambitious, intelligent, and is a hard-working nurse at a hospital. She becomes pregnant accidentally and is so emotionally drained of her life with Dean that she barely can contain her disgust for him. She's a wreck and we see that the love is gone on her part. In a sad memorable sequence, the two attempt to rekindle their romance in a cheesy motel with a futuristic theme. It's not about two people who hate one another; but it's about how do two people keep going when they're trapped in a rut? The exhaustion is so clear, that Cindy can't even feel anger anymore. Only bitter disappointment.

The heart of the film is about how there are types of love that can't be recaptured, but it is the memory of love that lingers loud and true. The film is about how and if two partners can't make it work and change for one another, and even stay somewhat on the same page, then what's the point?