Concluding our two-month On the Road season we present Dennis Hopper’s late-sixties classic in a double-bill with American minimalist filmmaker James Benning’s search for the legacy of the countercultural moment.

Easy Rider
Dennis Hopper
1969 | 94 min | Colour | 35mm

"This now-classic road movie turned the B-movie youthquake into an international art cinema. Easy Rider tells the story of Captain America and Billy the Kid as they go looking for America and, as Columbia’s original poster put it, “can’t find it anywhere.” From its legendary compilation score to its echt-60’s lens flares and culminating LSD trip, Easy Rider feels disconcertingly familiar, a model of what Tom Frank calls “the conquest of cool.” As they motor along to their inevitably tragic end, our heroes do drugs, have their rights violated, meet some interestingly allegorical groups of folks, and find themselves enframed by László Kovács’s gorgeous cinematography." – Harvard Film Archive

Easy Rider
James Benning
2012 | 95 min | Colour | Digital

"After doing a re-make of John Cassevetes' Faces, I decided to re-make another American classic, Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider. Easy Rider interests me in two ways: its portrayal of 60’s counterculture – unlike Faces which for me is more about the 50’s – and its search for place. I divided the original film into scenes (like I did with Faces) and then replaced each scene with one shot filmed at the original location (unlike Faces where shots were gleaned from the original film itself.) my Easy Rider tries to find today’s counter-culture (if one exists) by replacing the 60’s music with music that I listen to today." – James Benning

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Part of our On the Road season