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Five Easy Pieces [1970] | ![Five Easy Pieces [1970]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51P950F2KWL._SL160_.jpg)
 enlarge | Director: Bob Rafelson
Actors: Jack Nicholson, Karen Black, Billy Green Bush, Fannie Flagg, Sally Struthers
Studio: Uca
Category: DVD
List Price: £5.99
Buy New: £3.36
You Save: £2.63 (44%)
New (17) Used (6) from £2.75
Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 4854
Format: Anamorphic, Dubbed, Pal, Widescreen
Languages: Arabic (Subtitled), Bulgarian (Subtitled), Czech (Subtitled), Danish (Subtitled), Dutch (Subtitled), English (Subtitled), Finnish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), German (Subtitled), Greek (Subtitled), Hebrew (Subtitled), Hindi (Subtitled), Hungarian (Subtitled), Icelandic (Subtitled), Italian (Subtitled), Norwegian (Subtitled), Polish (Subtitled), Portuguese (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), Swedish (Subtitled), Turkish (Subtitled), English (Original Language), French (Dubbed), German (Dubbed), Italian (Dubbed), Spanish (Dubbed)
Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Region: 2
Discs: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 94 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
UPC: 020009737653
EAN: 0020009737653
ASIN: B00004D0GY
Theatrical Release Date: September 12, 1970
Release Date: March 8, 2004
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: IN STOCK. USUALLY DISPATCHED SAME OR NEXT WORKING DAY (MON - FRI). PLEASE ALLOW 3 - 6 DAYS FOR DELIVERY. BRAND NEW AND FULLY GUARANTEED BY A WELL ESTABLISHED TRUSTED LTD COMPANY. EMAIL DISPATCH CONFIRMATIONS SENT. TRACK PROGRESS 24/7
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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
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
Watch it more than once. August 27, 2007
LearnedViking
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
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 July 25, 2007
Lou Knee (England)
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
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 June 9, 2007
I. Thomson (Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
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.
Superb. Finest performance from a fine actor. January 16, 2007
Mr. A. S. T. Bateman (Halifax, England)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
This film proves beyond any other that there is much more to Jack Nicholson than the star, it showcases his enormous acting talent. For many people, the larger than life persona he adopts in so many of his films, most ntably in Batman and The Witches of Eastwick, is how they know him and this work is certainly entertaining but it is in the smaller often lesser known films that Jack the major acting talent appears. This is evident in offerings such as the brilliant Sean Penn thriller "The Pledge", the not so small "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" and this, in my opinion Nicholson's finest film.
The film tells of a talented but reluctant pianist who leaves his privileged, middle class life behind in favour of an uncertain and impoverished yet infinitely more satisfying life as a manual oil field worker. He shares his life with an ill-educated and rather annoying girl-friend who embarrases him in public and who represents the low-life conditions he has adopted for himself. When word comes through that his sick father is close to death he returns to his previous life reluctantly taking his girlfriend with him. On the way, Nicholson acts out one of the most famous scenes from any of his films as he shows his displeasure with a waitress who is reluctant to alter the menu to accomodate his desire for a chicken salad sandwich on brown bread (at least he has a healthy diet!).
The final part of the film acts as a metaphor for the dichotomy of America's middle and working classes and the seeming inability they have for co-existence. Realising that the problem is entrenched and that as a thinking member of the American middle class who balks at its hypocrisy and one for whom a working class life fails to satiate his needs, the central character in a brilliant open ending makes the ultimate opting out step for those who find it difficult to find a place in society and simply walks away from all he knows to see what's over the next hill. In short,he has the nerve to do what so many other people would like to do.
The film is quite simply a piece of cinematic excellence with BRILLIANT performances from all concerned:- cannot possible be recommended highly enough
jack at his best!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! May 20, 2004
Paul Price (south wales)
9 out of 17 found this review helpful
This is a fabulous film, incredibly thought-provoking and involving. The central performances had me spellbound.
If you like films which make you think, draw you in and spit you out at the end...... buy this film!!!!!!!!!!!
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