Head (1968) - Bob Rafelson

In 1970 Bob Rafelson and Jack Nicholson made Five Easy Pieces. A film which would shape the way the better dramas of the coming decade would be crafted. Small, intimate, well written and acted and shot through with an indie sensibility. Before that though they set about deconstructing the popular modern beat combo The Monkees. Rafelson had produced/written/directed their TV show and had obviously decided that it was time for things to move on. So when it came for them to make their first (and last) feature film Davy, Mike, Pete and Micky (The Monkees) along with Nicholson (writing) and Rafelson (writing and directing) went all out to address the things that weren't allowed on the TV series.

So we get subtle (and not so subtle) drug references, lots of Vietnam footage and of course loads of the lads sticking it to the man. There's no real plot, more just a series of interconnecting vignettes. Which is all fab gear for the first half hour or so, but after that it just drags. There's none of the zaniness of the series, which isn't a problem, but there isn't really anything funny in here either. For all it's shouting it doesn't have much to say beyond, 'um WAR isn't good, you dig' either. So quite a hollow 85 minutes then. It's not as bad as The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour, but that was at least saved by having a soundtrack to die for.

Ah yes the music, well it's actually pretty good, the film kicks off and ends with one of The Monkees best moments - Porpoise Song. There are a few cameos too, we get Zappa waxing forth about how the boys should stick to music, Dennis Hopper walks through the frame at one point, as do Rafelson and Nicholson. There's plenty of late 60's playfulness too, camera equipment in full view, and continual reminders that this is a film, so people walk off sets or break out of character half way through a scene. Wacky groovy et cetera.

Head tanked at the cinema, the hipsters that would have lapped this up would never go and see something staring that most manufactured of bands - The Monkees, and The Monkees audience were too young to get in and see the film. Ho hum. If you like this sort of thing then maybe this is for you, although I'd say you're better off with something like Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain, which is amazing, trippy, beautifully directed, has a better soundtrack and is still like really far out man.

Five Easy Pieces (1970) - Bob Rafelson

One of that crop of late sixties/early seventies films that gave Hollywood a hard slap around the face, told it to go and sit out by the pool and enjoy it's retirement because everything had changed, The Kids are in charge now. Of course like everything that is ever considered underground, the mainstream managed to absorb these upstarts and carry on as if nothing had happened. The main thing for us though is that we were bequeathed a handful of great era defining films.

This is the film that gave Jack Nicholson the chance to be the star attraction after a career playing second fiddle for so long. Nicholson grabs the chance with both hands and turns in one of his best performances. Sure he's a little OTT in places, but that's what we want from Jack isn't it? He plays Robert Dupea as complex a character as any on Nicholson's CV. He's a dropout, but not the typical Haight-Ashbury acid guru that you'd expect from this time. Dupea comes from a family not unlike that in The Royal Tenenbaums in a way, since his siblings are all musical prodigies in awe of their father. Dupea himself is a pianist, not that you'd know that from the first half of the film.

When we first meet him he's working in the oil fields, his girlfriend - Rayette (a top form Karen Black) is a waitress in a diner, he drinks beer after work, they go bowling, his best mate lives in a trailer. Quite quickly though it becomes obvious that Robert isn't cut from the same cloth as the people he surrounds himself with. The other thing that becomes clear is that he's a moody bugger, angry at something, full of suppressed emotions which sometimes boil over, in that typically electric Nicholson style that we've come to know so well. In fact Nicholson has his bag of tics all down to pat here, the sticky out tongue, the tasmanian devil style outbursts, the faraway hundred yard stare, they're all present as is the balding long hair look that he rocked throughout the seventies.

The second half of the film has Dupea returning to the homestead with Rayette in tow. She neatly balances out the 'I'm a stranger here' of Nicholson's character in the first half. There's all sorts of little sub plots that dove tail neatly together by the end of the film. You know it can never end well, since independent films from this era never did. Vietnam was eating up America's young, Nixon was helping to maintain the generation gap and even The Beatles were at each others throats. How can you have a big happy day-glo ending with all that in mind?

Like Jack this was Rafelson's chance to prove himself too. This was his second film after the 'wacky' Monkees vehicle Head. Which turned out to be a bit 'tune in, turn on, nod off', probably cool for that year, but not the sort of thing great films are made of. Rafelson manages to frame Dupea alone against troubled skies at every opportunity. In general though his directing style is to fit in around what the actors are doing. There are some memorable scenes that once seen are burnt into the brain forever. The diner scene and the piano on the truck are the two most famous ones, but there's also a wonderfully hammy moment between Dupea and his dad too. There are some great roles for the womenfolk also. I love the two hitch hikers heading to Alaska, but best of all is Lois Smith as Dupea's sister. She's reason enough to return to this film again and again for me. Just wonderful.