Five Easy Pieces

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Five Easy Pieces

original movie poster
Directed by Bob Rafelson
Produced by Robert Daley
Written by Carole Eastman
Bob Rafelson
Starring Jack Nicholson
Karen Black
Cinematography László Kovács
Distributed by Columbia Pictures
Release date(s) September 11, 1970 (USA)
Running time 96 min.
Language English
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Five Easy Pieces is a 1970 film written by Carole Eastman (as Adrien Joyce) and Bob Rafelson, and directed by Rafelson. It tells the story of Bobby Dupea (played by Jack Nicholson), a former piano prodigy who is estranged from his artistic upper class family. In the opening of the film, the character is working as an oil rigger. When his father becomes ill, he goes home to visit his family, reluctantly taking his diner waitress girlfriend with him. It stars Jack Nicholson, Karen Black, Susan Anspach, Billy Green Bush, Fannie Flagg, Lois Smith, and Sally Struthers.

A title sequence as written in the screenplay showed earlier scenes in the Dupea family's life, including 10-year-old Bobby's recital program music: (the apparently fictitious) Grebner's "Five Easy Pieces". However, the sequence was not used, and the film titles open instead with the adult Bobby at the oil rigs.

The soundtrack employed five songs by Tammy Wynette, including "Stand By Your Man."

The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Jack Nicholson), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Karen Black), Best Picture and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Factual Material or Material Not Previously Published or Produced.

In 2000, Five Easy Pieces was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Also the notable filmmakers Lars Von Trier, Joel and Ethan Coen, Ingmar Bergman, and the award-winning novelists Cormac McCarthy and William Gaddis have expressed deep admiration for the movie.

[edit] Famous scene

The waitress, Bobby, Rayette, and two hitchhikers.
The waitress, Bobby, Rayette, and two hitchhikers.

The movie's most famous scene takes place in a roadside restaurant where Bobby tries to get a waitress (Lorna Thayer) to bring him toast with his breakfast, which is not on the menu. Despite appeals to logic and common sense, the waitress adamantly sticks to the rules of the restaurant, so Bobby comes up with a plan of his own as Rayette and their two hitchhikers (played by Toni Basil and Helena Kallianiotes) look on:

Bobby: I'd like a plain omelet. No potatoes, tomatoes instead. A cup of coffee and wheat toast.
Waitress: No substitutions.
Bobby: What do you mean? You don't have any tomatoes?
Waitress: Only what's on the menu. You can have a number two — a plain omelet. It comes with cottage fries, and rolls.
Bobby: Yea, I know what it comes with, but it's not what I want.
Waitress: Well I'll come back when you make up your mind.
Bobby: Wait a minute, I have made up my mind. I'd like a plain omelet, no potatoes on the plate. A cup of coffee and a side order of wheat toast.
Waitress: I'm sorry, we don't have any side orders of toast. I'll give you an English muffin or a coffee roll.
Bobby: What do you mean "you don't make side orders of toast"? You make sandwiches, don't you?
Waitress: Would you like to talk to the manager?
Bobby: You've got bread. And a toaster of some kind?
Waitress: I don't make the rules.
Bobby: OK, I'll make it as easy for you as I can. I'd like an omelet, plain, and a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast, no mayonnaise, no butter, no lettuce. And a cup of coffee.
Waitress: A number two, chicken sal san. Hold the butter, the lettuce, the mayonnaise, and a cup of coffee. Anything else?
Bobby: Yeah, now all you have to do is hold the chicken, bring me the toast, give me a check for the chicken salad sandwich, and you haven't broken any rules.
Waitress(sarcastically): You want me to hold the chicken, huh?
Bobby: I want you to hold it between your knees.

The waitress then indignantly orders them to leave, to which Nicholson knocks the drinks off the table with a sweep of his arm.

Back in the car:

Palm Apodaca: Fantastic that you could figure that all out and lie that down on her so you could come up with a way to get your toast. Fantastic.
Bobby: Yea, well I didn't get it, did I?
Palm Apodaca: No, but it was very clever. I would've just punched her out.

The scene is iconic as a metaphor for the rebellious, free spirit of the youth of the late 1960s and early 1970s, a strong theme in the film as a whole. Thirty years later Nicholson would perform a scene in the movie About Schmidt which directly drew from this scene (available as a "Deleted Scene" extra on the DVD release). Nicholson's character in About Schmidt, an emotionally downtrodden retiree, in contrast, humbly accepts the waitress' "no substitutions" rule.

[edit] Trivia

The five classical piano pieces--not necessarily "easy"--played in the movie are:

[edit] External links

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