Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3659 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-03-08
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Dubbed, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Arabic, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish
• Dubbed in: French, German, Italian, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 94 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
This subtle, existential character study of an emotionally distant outcast (Nicholson) forced to confront his past failures remains an intimate cornerstone of American cinema of the 1970s. Written and directed with remarkable restraint by Bob Rafelson, the film is the result of a short-lived partnership between the filmmaker and Nicholson--the first was the zany formalist exercise, Head, while the equally impressive King of Marvin Gardens followed Five Easy Pieces. Quiet and full of long, controlled takes, this film draws its strength from the acutely detailed, non-judgemental observations of its complex protagonist, Robert Dupea--an extremely crass and frustrated oil worker and failed child pianist hiding from his past in Texas. Dupea spends his life drinking beer and sleeping with (and cheating on) his annoying but adoring Tammy Wynette-wannabe girlfriend, but when he learns that his father is dying in Washington State, he leaves. After the film transforms into a spirited road movie, and arrives at the eccentric upper-class Dupea family mansion, it becomes apparent that leaving is what Dupea does best--from his problems, fears and those who love him. Nicholson gives a difficult yet masterful performance in an unlikeable role, one that's full of ambiguity and requires violent shifts in acting style. Several sequences--such as his stopping traffic to play piano, or his famous verbal duels with a cranky waitress over a chicken-salad sandwich--are Nicholson landmarks. Yet, it's the quieter moments, when Dupea tries miserably to communicate and reconcile with his dying father, where the actor shows his real talent--and by extension, shows us the wounded little boy that lurks in the shell of the man Dupea has become. --Dave McCoy, Amazon.com

Special Features
1.85 Wide Screen
16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
DVD 5
French\German\Italian\Spanish
English
Region 2
Dolby Digital Mono English French German Italian Spanish
Dolby Digital Mono
Interactive Menus
Scene Selections
Filmographies
Arabic\Bulgarian\Czech\Danish\Dutch\English\Finnish\French\German\Greek\Hebrew\Hindi\Hungarian\Icelandic\Italian\Norwegian\Polish\Portuguese\Spanish\Swedish\Turkish

Synopsis
A drifter falls for his brother's fiancee but leaves her for a trip to nowhere...

Customer Reviews

Watch it more than once.
I've watched the film several times over the last 15 years and I enjoy it each time: it is good to capture the different character performances. A surprising film.

Without Nicholson, this film wouldn't have been half as watchable
This involving movie is an odd mix of new wave cinema exploring the soul of modern America and plain old fashioned melodrama. From its On The Road type beginning, it suddenly changes course and even gets a little heavy in the middle. Also, its main theme of family ties and values being a burden for its offspring is not a subject a lot of people will find fun. However, it's put into a loosely woven non-plot, and the film is best described as a semi road movie, or a road movie with a particularly long garage stop.

Of course though, as this film's reputation will confirm, there are some well conceived scenes and some good photography. The dialogue is also very strong, and seems to have been written for the man himself, it so suits his personality. Once again, Mr. Nicholson plays a drop out drifter type, which he kind of got type cast into, in his major breakthrough period of the late 60s, early 70s. But when he isn't drifting along on the road, doing his trademark 'what the hell's the matter with all of you, why aren't you living?' bit, he really does get his teeth into some solid, serious acting.

It may not be light viewing, but virtually the whole of the lengthy passage where he visits home, is thought provoking and somehow makes you feel a little homesick and sick of home at the same time. Nicholson plays it like the subject means an awful lot to him, and the scene where he breaks down in tears in front of the father he could never actually get on with is very moving, and marks the point in his career when his real acting talent couldn't fail to be noticed. As fine a piece of acting as you are likely to see, really.

He Rode the long road to nowhere. Depressing and evocative, but excellent
Five Easy Pieces is a simplist road movie which gave Jack Nicholson as it's main performance, respect from Hollywood which has been granted ever since. This is the film that Nicholson made his start.

Robert Dupac is a typical blue-collar oil worker who migrates a lot to find temporary work and accommodation with his dumb waitress girlfriend. Dupac keeps a low profile who mixes in with fellow workmates he treats as friends, but whom don't understand him. Dupac, then has to face his sister whose own father is gravely ill and has to come clean about the piano career he ran away from.......

Five Easy Pieces came out at the beginning of the seventies when the hippie movement was slowing dying out. The film is about lost opportunity of youths being denied free spirit and the urge of an anti-establishment against the wishes of their domineering families'.

His first with director Bob Ralefson, Nicholson displays Robert Dupac to be a man of despair, one who fails to question his troubled actions, who moves on and tries to erases the memory but lives with the pain of confirment and has no direction in his life whatsoever. Dupac has a rebellious soul, keen to break away from the fringes of society, but keeps drifting in and out, trying to settle down. Dupac feels that his people should learn to have fun, enjoy each other and hang out together instead of forming obessions like his musical family who pursure him to reach his goal of being an pianist.

The editing kept Dupac in the focus always and the slow revealing point of why his life amounts to nothing with a dead-end job. Nicholson stands out and for all the right reasons: his apperance; his attitude; his eccentric behaviour; his grief and sadness.

Many people say that Ralefson only had one film in him which is Five Easy Pieces-a tragic, roller-coaster, poetic piece of the generation that were ignored by the masses. Best recommened for a hardcore fan of 1970s semi-independant cinema or any Jack Nicholson fan.