He’s no moody youngster or lovesick fool, or anyone’s deconstructed idea of a pulp hero. Nicholson’s Dupea embodies the self-destructive dissatisfaction that was common to a lot of movie characters in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but his unhappiness resonates more, because he isn’t the kind of person that usually gets movies made about him. Back in the car, one of the women applauds Bobby for standing up for himself, and he mumbles, “But I didn’t get my toast, did I?”įive Easy Pieces is the very definition of a character study, and one of the best American cinema has produced. Besides, the most important part of this tantrum is what happens after, in a follow-up scene that never makes it into the New Hollywood clip-reels. The rest of Five Easy Pieces isn’t as comedic or as full of overt conflict, and two of the women eating with Bobby only showed up in the movie five minutes earlier, and will be gone five minutes later. (“You want me to hold the chicken, huh?” “I want you to hold it between your knees.”) Out of context, the scene is deceptive. Even film buffs who’ve never seen Five Easy Pieces are likely familiar with the image of Jack Nicholson as Bobby Dupea, sitting in a diner and snapping at an unhelpful waitress, telling her to bring him a chicken-salad sandwich with no chicken, so he can have the toast. The most famous scene in Five Easy Pieces reveals very little of what the movie is actually about, but everything about who.
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