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Wednesday, 29 July 2009 11:18

Five Easy Pieces: Thoughts and Analysis

Five easy pieces: thoughts and analysis
by Mark Sevi

Exclusive to the Orange County Screenwriters Association

five easy pieces

Written more than thirty years, "Five Easy Pieces" is a story about loss and alienation in a post-Vietnam, post-hippie world. But it has still-timely lessons for today’s writers both personally and professionally. 

The loss is the loss of the innocence of youth when a mother’s touch and guidance could buffer one from the harsh realities of the world and seemingly make us fit into this world even if we are the proverbial square peg in a round hole. The alienation is one of intellect and societal norms that weigh us down and force us to do what is expected, rather than what we want. Also, this film reflects both the loss and alienation of unrealistic expectations - the expectations of youth when everything seems possible.

The Nicholson character, Bobby, loses (through death) his mother’s guidance as a young man (this is only dealt with in the script - his mother is never mentioned in the film). This sets within him the seeds of an alienation that become so profound that heust flee his upper-class, musical arts-infused upbringing that has ultimately failed him. He leaves after his mother’s death and drops into a world that asks little of him but also gives little in return.  But for a while, that’s enough for Bobby. When your loss is this profound, you go numb. Bobby is numb and stays numb for many years after his mother’s death.

Imagine a young man who hates the pretense and confinement of his upbringing which was insular, incestuous (experiences, not sexual), and filled with endless obligations that weren’t a lot of fun. Add in the fact that Bobby, the youngest, never quite fit with his older siblings (and father) who seemed to flourish in this stifling environment and you have the makings of a young man who can’t seem to find his place in any world. Sensing or knowing that, it’s simply easier to just drop out and live adiner scene mundane existence. This becomes the Bobby we first meet as the film opens. Without the buffer of his beloved mother, he just- is.

In Bobby’s blue collar world, the only thing asked of him is being a good old boy, to buy a round occasionally, and to bowl a game once a week. What he doesn’t realize is that even alliances of convenience in this world require you to participate in other people’s lives. That participation sometimes become chains that hold you strongly in place against your will. We can certainly all relate to that.

Rayette, Bobby’s Miss-Right-Now, takes her relationship with him seriously even if he doesn’t, and doesn’t see it for the sexual companionship trifle that Bobby does. She becomes pregnant by him, and clingy and suddenly, those chains that held Bobby in Seattle when he was younger are quickly transferred to his neck in the oil fields of Signal Hill, California. When his “friend”, Elden, (Bobby has no real friends because he is incapable of forming alliances that aren’t just temporary), mentions that (1) he should “get him one of those” (a kid), (2) that Rayette is in fact pregnant, and (3) that just hanging with the wife and kid is what basically makes Elden happy, Bobby has a fit and says “It’s ridiculous. I’m sittin’ here listenin’ to some asshole cracker compare his life to mine.” - and - “Just keep tellin’ me about the good life, Elden. If you want ‘a see me puke my lunch.”

This sounds a bell in our minds that Bobby isn’t the Okey-Doky good old boy he appears to be in the opening scenes. There’s something fundamentally different about him from Elden and Rayette. A higher sensibility, perhaps, about the tedium and sorrows of life. This so-called “higher sensibility” about life is pre-shadowed in the scene on the freeway when Bobby climbs on a truck and plays a piano like a concert pianist. Who knew he could play like that? It’s a simple scene, quickly done but it says so much about this character. Here’s our good buddy Bobby, hungover from a night of debauchery with Elden and two “working girls”, just been bounced from work because he can’t walk straight, swearing up a storm about the traffic jam they’re stuck in - and yet, he has this amazing musical talent that speaks of hours of higher-ed training buried inside. Most certainly this is a man of contradictions who just can’t be comfortable in either world. This is also subtly expressed in the fact that the truck he’s on, while he’s playing, takes an off-ramp away from the “sheep” who are in line waiting- for the traffic jam to clear. A sign that Bobby is a man who walks his own path, mostly unaware of where he’s going. He’s reactive rather than proactive in his own life.

As smart as he is, Bobby can’t reconcile his uncertainty no matter where he is or how he tries. Seeking some solace and relief from Rayette’s constant barrage of love pronouncements, Bobby agrees to go see his father who has suffered a major stroke and may not live. Once there, his clumsy attempts at his brother’s fiancé lead to a sexual union but a total rejection from her of him in any other way. This goes back to his mother and his confusion over her he takes with him all his life. When he asks Katherine “And living out here in this rest home asylum, that’s what you want?” and she says “Yes”, Bobby simply cannot accept it. He just says “Okay” and allows her to walk away from him. This is him, talking to his long dead mother. How could you live here, he asks her. How could you die here? Why did you never escape? He clearly doesn’t want to make the same mistake she did.

It’s appropriate that his father is stroke-ridden and cannot respond in any way to him. This was their relationship when he was young - even given full range of faculties, the old man never loved him like his mother did - he was for all intents and purposes stroke-addled.

In a deeper, existential sense his father represents God, the father, white beard and all. This is not really a contradiction. We talk to God all the time as we try to make sense of our world. He never answers us - we see results that we attribute to God but this is just as likely coincidence - according to the film makers. If there is a God, he is an uncommunicative old man who doesn’t interact with us in any way but has a profound influence, usually negative, on our lives. This philosophy skews toward the religious-existentialism of Søren Kierkegaard that basically states that there may be a God but he cares nothing for us and our goings-on.

The fact that Bobby’s father is stroke-damaged, as helpless as a child, is highly significant. This is a sign that the Bobby of his youth no longer sees the all-powerful man his father was. In leaving, he turned his back on his father and his iron-will but he also left when the man was vital and strong. Now he says “I can’t stand to see him this way.” In other words, he’s outgrowing the childish image of his father that he had. Many of us see this as our parents age and become unfirm. It’s hard, impossible, to look at their shrinking, wrinkled forms and remember the vibrant, strong people they were. This cadaver on wheels shakes Bobby to his core. It means he’s getting old. He sees his own fleeing years in the reflection of his father’s lined face. It’s a reminder of his own mortality and a rite of passage into final adulthood. And it’s a direct metaphor for Bobby’s lack of faith in anything anymore. Father = God. Both are damaged goods. Neither is the answer to his eternal quest for clarity in his life. If he is to solve his angst, he must do it without guidance either from him mother, long dead, or from his father, impotent with disease.

In response, Bobby seduces his brother’s fiancé - a way of proving he’s still viable, still vibrant, still strong, unlike his withered father. He disastrously seeks solace and vibrancy in this woman’s stable but pedestrian world. When she finally rejects him, he knows that he is truly, wholly alone and must make his own way in the world.

Bobby makes one more attempt at finding a place to be. He takes his father to an opengirls on roadside field to seek answers. It’s isolated, as is Bobby, and confessional in nature. He tries to form the basis for his life’s confusions but he simply can’t. And “God” can’t or won’t communicate the answer to help him. In the end, Bobby cries the tears of a child who has been abandoned and hurt. We don’t want to grow up, but we must - Bobby doesn’t want that either. Bobby’s confusion is the confusion of many people, even today, who don’t see themselves as fitting in this world of Christian values - or really, the values of any religion or society.

This story was written at a time when disaffected youth, stunned by the lack of any real progress of the social movements of the 60's, suddenly had to deal with the realities of the world. They had to find a way to fit somewhere between the idealism of their youth and the fact that they needed to get a job, find a place to live, and bring children into a world that was changing rapidly. Vietnam, Watergate and the sudden realization of the shallowness of society is represented by Bobby’s loss of a mother who loved and nurtured him.

In the 70's there was no comfortable place for these hippy, quasi-adults who were now too young to screw around anymore and too old to be cute in their oft-expressed disdain of the world. Where, in fact, do you go when you’re abandoned by everything? Bobby tells us through his story - nowhere fast.

In the end, Bobby divests himself of his identity - wallet, car, girlfriend and even clothing (a jacket that he leaves behind even though he’s heading to frigid temps) and hitches a ride to one of the bleakest places on Earth - Alaska - where he will disappear and begin again without identity. Some say this is resignedly existential - that there is no happy ending for Bobby. I think you can stretch a point and view the ending in alternate terms - more messianic - death to self to pay for your sins, then to rise again. It’s up to your interpretation.

At it’s core, it is an existential world vision though. “Five Easy Pieces” seems anything but deep or moving initially. It feels like it wanders without much rhyme or reason. But the more you watch it, think about it - the deeper you dig, the deeper it gets until you discover that it’s a sinkhole leading to places dark, dangerous and personally deadly.

~ Mark Sevi is professional screenwriter living in Southern California. As of this writing he has over 18 produced films. He also teaches screenwriting and writes articles about writing for national pubs about scriptwriting.

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Thursday, 23 July 2009 14:16

Interactive Website: What You Can Do Here

You Can: (click title above for more):

Use the menu to the left to:

  • Set up a profile.
  • Add buddies to that profile (coming soon.)
  • Create and share content that will appear on the front page of this website.  We'd like to see news, information, etc. come from all of the membership.
  • Create 5-word movie reviews.
  • Ask A Hack (ask questions about screenwriting and get answers - with attitude.)
  • Read reviews, how-to articles, etc.
  • Post and read information on the forums.  We soon should have a way to upload scripts and allow people to read them.  Until then, if you have a link to your script that you want comments on you can post that.
  • Post jobs, contests, opportunities, etc. to the jobs board.  We welcome the posting of any college events, film festivals, script/film contests, etc.
  • Have fun and gain connections.

We're building, growing, changing and you are part of that.  Help us by please sending us your comments, suggestions or criticisms.  We'll get better and more sophisticated as we go with your help.

Thanks!

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