Synopsis
"
Dennis Hopper’s little-seen follow-up to the epochal hit
Easy Rider is one of cinema’s legendary films maudits. Given carte blanche and a large budget by Universal Pictures, the actor-director took a film crew and a cast of pals – including
Kris Kristofferson,
Peter Fonda,
Michelle Phillips, and
Samuel Fuller – off to Peru, where they made this radically self-reflexive New Wave wonder, the acid-trip tale of a Hollywood company shooting a Western in the Andes. Hopper plays stuntman Kansas, who becomes caught up in the local indigenous community’s alarming new religious rituals.
Rebel Without a Cause screenwriter
Stewart Stern co-wrote the script. Hopper described the film’s production as “one long sex-and-drugs orgy.” The unconventional narrative structure suggests a director under the thrall of both psychedelics and
Godard. The film bombed at the box office, derailing Hopper’s directorial career. He remained convinced it was his masterpiece." – The Cinematheque
