Five Easy Pieces
Five Easy Pieces
•
1h 38m
Directed by Bob Rafelson • 1970 • United States
Starring Jack Nicholson, Karen Black
Following Jack Nicholson’s breakout supporting turn in EASY RIDER, director Bob Rafelson devised a powerful leading role for the new star in the searing character study FIVE EASY PIECES. Nicholson plays the now iconic cad Bobby Dupea, a shiftless thirtysomething oil rigger and former piano prodigy immune to any sense of responsibility, who returns to his upper-middle-class childhood home, blue-collar girlfriend (Karen Black, in an Oscar-nominated role) in tow, to see his estranged, ailing father. Moving in its simplicity and gritty in its textures, FIVE EASY PIECES is a lasting example of early 1970s American alienation.
Up Next in Five Easy Pieces
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FIVE EASY PIECES Commentary
This commentary features FIVE EASY PIECES director Bob Rafelson and interior designer Toby Rafelson.
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Spotlight on New Hollywood
The following introduction by Mark Harris, author of “Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood,” was recorded in 2024
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Soul Searching in FIVE EASY PIECES
This 2009 program features director Bob Rafelson and actor Jack Nicholson discussing the writing and development of FIVE EASY PIECES.
