Five Easy Pieces is a 1970 American roaddrama film[2] directed by Bob Rafelson, written by Rafelson and Carole Eastman (as Adrien Joyce), and starring Jack Nicholson, Karen Black, Susan Anspach, Lois Smith, and Ralph Waite. The film tells the story of surly oil rig worker Bobby Dupea (Nicholson), whose rootless blue-collar existence belies his privileged youth as a piano prodigy. When Bobby learns that his father is dying, he travels to his family home in Washington to visit him, taking along his uncouth girlfriend (Black).
Bobby Dupea works in an oil field in Kern County, California. He spends most of his time with his girlfriend Rayette, a waitress who has dreams of singing country music, or with fellow oil worker Elton, with whom he bowls, gets drunk, and philanders.
When Bobby gets Rayette pregnant and Elton is arrested, Bobby quits his job and goes to Los Angeles, where his sister Partita is making a classical piano recording. She tells Bobby, who was once also a pianist, that their father has suffered two strokes, and urges him to reconcile with the family at their home in Washington.
Rayette threatens to kill herself if Bobby leaves her, so he reluctantly asks her along. Driving north, they pick up Terry and Palm, two stranded women headed for Alaska. The latter launches into a monologue about the evils of consumerism. The four are thrown out of a diner after Bobby argues with an obstinate waitress over his order. Bobby drops off Terry and Palm when they get to Washington.
Ashamed to introduce Rayette to his upper-class family, Bobby registers her in a motel before driving alone to the family home on an island in Puget Sound. He finds Partita giving their father a haircut; the old man seems completely oblivious to him. At dinner, Bobby meets Catherine Van Oost, a young pianist studying under and engaged to his amiable brother Carl, a violinist. Despite personality differences, Catherine and Bobby are immediately attracted to each other. Learning that Bobby was once a pianist, she asks him to play for her. She is moved by his rendition of Frédéric Chopin's Prelude, Op. 28, No. 4, but Bobby dismisses her, insisting that he played with "no inner feeling". Angered by Bobby's rejection, she leaves, but he follows after her and they have sex in her room.
Rayette runs out of money at the motel and comes to the Dupea estate unannounced. Her presence creates an awkward situation, but when intellectual family friend Samia Glavia ridicules her, Bobby comes to her defense. Storming out of the room in search of Catherine, he discovers his father's male nurse giving Partita a sensual massage. He picks a fight with the nurse, who easily subdues him.
Bobby tries to persuade Catherine to go away with him, but she declines, telling him he cannot ask for love when he does not love himself, or anything at all. After tearfully confessing his regrets to his unresponsive father, Bobby leaves for California with Rayette. Shortly into the trip, they stop for gas and coffee; while Rayette's view is obstructed, Bobby hitches a ride on a truck headed north.
While the film's earlier scenes were shot in California, the majority was filmed in the Pacific Northwest.[5] Filming primarily occurred on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, with additional photography occurring in Florence and Portland, Oregon.[6] The diner sequence, in which Robert pesters an obstinate waitress, was filmed at a Denny's along Interstate 5 near Eugene, Oregon.[7][8][9][10] Screenwriter Carole Eastman based the scene on a real incident she witnessed at Pupi's Bakery and Sidewalk Café in Los Angeles,[11][12][13][14] where an aggrieved Jack Nicholson pushed all the plates and cups off of a table, and on Rafelson frequently asking for substitutions at restaurants.[15]
To prepare for his role, Jack Nicholson undertook piano lessons from Polish concert pianist Josef Pacholczyk.[16]
In 2022, Sally Struthers revealed that director Bob Rafelson coerced her into appearing nude on set against her stated wishes, and made a false promise that she would not appear nude in the final cut.[17]
Music
The opening credits list the five classical piano pieces played in the film and referenced in the title. Pearl Kaufman is credited as the pianist.
The film was shown at the New York Film Festival on September 11, 1970. It opened commercially on September 12 at the Coronet Theatre in New York.[18]
Box office
"The last sequence is of the finest quality. Bobby decides to leave both girlfriend and family and abandon life entirely...a truck driver gives him a ride to a place where 'it is very cold': the country of death. Rafelson and his cameraman László Kovács fix the scene in our minds forever: the filling station and its discreet restroom; the grey surrounding buildings; the dripping autumnal vegetation of the Pacific Northwest; the parked truck waiting to go to Alaska; the face of Nicholson, already aging and filled with premonitory shadows, fixed behind the windshield. Religion, love and family have all failed to work, leaving absolutely nothing at the end but a journey to nowhere."
—Biographer Charles Higham in The Art of the American Cinema: 1900-1971.[19]
In the film's opening weekend at the Coronet, it grossed $10,476.[20] It grossed $36,710 in its first week.[21] After ten weeks of release, it reached number one at the US box office.[22]
The film earned $1.2 million in the United States in 1970.[23] By 1976, it had earned $8.9 million in the United States and Canada.[24]
Critical response
Five Easy Pieces opened to positive reviews. It currently holds an 89% positive rating on online review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on 55 reviews, with an average rating of 8.60/10. The site's consensus states: "An important touchstone of the New Hollywood era, Five Easy Pieces is a haunting portrait of alienation that features one of Jack Nicholson's greatest performances."[25]
Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars, describing it as "one of the best American films" and "a masterpiece of heartbreaking intensity" and deeming Bobby Dupea "one of the most unforgettable characters in American movies."[26] Ebert named it the best film of 1970, and later added it to his "Great Movies" list.[27]
In a mixed review, critic John Simon criticized Five Easy Pieces for its "pretentiousness" but praised the performances of Karen Black, Lois Smith, and Billy Green Bush.[28]
In 2022 retrospective review, Polish writer Jacek Szafranowicz called the film "flawless" and "one of the masterpieces of the New Hollywood era".[29]
Grover Crisp of Sony Pictures conducted a 4K restoration of the film, which was screened in DCP in 2012.[39][40]
The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray by The Criterion Collection in November 2010 as part of the box set America Lost and Found: The BBS Story. This release includes audio commentary by Rafelson and interior designer Toby Rafelson; Soul Searching in "Five Easy Pieces", a 2009 video piece with Rafelson; BBStory, a 2009 documentary about Raybert/BBS Productions, with Rafelson, Nicholson, Black, Burstyn, Peter Bogdanovich, and Henry Jaglom, among others; and audio excerpts from a 1976 AFI interview with Rafelson.[41] On June 30, 2015, the film was released as a stand-alone DVD and Blu-ray by the Criterion Collection.[42]
^Higham, Charles (1973). The Art of the American Film: 1900-1971. New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc. pp. 307–308. ISBN0-385-06935-9. Nicholson gives a performance of sustained brilliance as Bobby Dupea" in Five Easy Pieces
