Rayette in Five Easy Pieces always seemed to me like a misogynist conceit of Bob Rafelson's and little more, I have to admit. she's pretty affecting in Nashville, though her song is terrible. her favorite performance of mine might be in born to win, an extremely depressive/ing film about junkies. (robert deniro is in the movie for about 10 minutes and they always put his ugly mug on the DVD covers.)
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Saturday, 10 August 2013 04:15 (ten years ago) link
(I think Five Easy Pieces has dated worse than almost any major film of the "Hollywood Renaissance," except maybe The Rain People)
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Saturday, 10 August 2013 04:16 (ten years ago) link
Could not disagree more.
I should have added Cisco Pike as another film of hers I really like.
― clemenza, Saturday, 10 August 2013 04:19 (ten years ago) link
The scene in 5EP that hasn't aged well is Jack telling off all the grotesque strawmen at the family compound.
― Miss Arlington twirls for the Coal Heavers (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 10 August 2013 05:23 (ten years ago) link
That scene, absolutely. I'd even like to think I would have found it obvious and clumsy and too easy by half the day the film came out. (Black does fine, though--if I remember correctly, there's something touching about the way she tries to avoid a confrontation.) The rest of the movie is close to perfect, I'd say.
A much better version of the same scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3aSzFEoMMc
― clemenza, Saturday, 10 August 2013 07:54 (ten years ago) link
...where he defends Rayette against them. The scene's there for Jack to finally take a side, rejecting his family's lot in favor of his Wynette-lovin', greasy spoon waitressin' babymama. Which of course is undermined a few scenes later when he decides he doesn't like her so much either.
As plot mechanisms go, I have no problem with it.
― Uncle Cyril O'Boogie (C. Grisso/McCain), Saturday, 10 August 2013 08:09 (ten years ago) link
Kent Jones' essay for the Criterion 5EP is superb.
― Uncle Cyril O'Boogie (C. Grisso/McCain), Saturday, 10 August 2013 08:19 (ten years ago) link
I watched the scene again. I was wrong about Black trying to smooth things over--I must be thinking of another scene where she says something like "That's okay, it's alright" (dinner with Bobby's family?). But I do find her affecting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nfoP3bmd1c
Nicholson's fine too--his contempt feels genuine--and even Anspach is good. The problem is the woman: grotesque strawman indeed. The people in the Elvis scene are caricatures too, but at least that's played for laughs. A passage from Stanley Kauffmann I've always liked (he's not addressing Five Easy Pieces specifically, may not have even had it in mind--the decadent/pretentious/vapid Party Scene was a staple of the late '60s/early '70s, going back to La Dolce Vita, I guess), but I think it applies. He's reviewing Desperate Characters: "And Gilroy has given us a party scene that, for once, doesn't try to be the epitome of the Rotten and Superficial, it's just a party."
Will read the Kent Jones piece.
― clemenza, Saturday, 10 August 2013 15:23 (ten years ago) link
I should add that Kauffmann gave Five Easy Pieces probably the best review from a major critic that it got at the time, and I believe he ended up putting it on a list he made of the 10 best American films from 1968-1977.
― clemenza, Saturday, 10 August 2013 15:25 (ten years ago) link
and they just hadda put Ralph Waite in a neck brace
― Miss Arlington twirls for the Coal Heavers (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 10 August 2013 15:54 (ten years ago) link
Black is great in that role tho, for sure
Archival Music Album Coming:
https://shop.mexicansummer.com/product/karen-black-dreaming-of-you/
― blue whales on ambient (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, 19 May 2021 20:20 (two years ago) link
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/jul/19/karen-black-hollywood-actor-singer-dreaming-of-you
― “Heroin” (ft. Bobby Gillespie) (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, 19 July 2021 16:21 (two years ago) link