RIP Karen Black

Could not disagree more.

I should have added Cisco Pike as another film of hers I really like.

The scene in 5EP that hasn't aged well is Jack telling off all the grotesque strawmen at the family compound.

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

The scene in 5EP that hasn't aged well is Jack telling off all the grotesque strawmen at the family compound.

...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.

Kent Jones' essay for the Criterion 5EP is superb.

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.

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.

and they just hadda put Ralph Waite in a neck brace

Black is great in that role tho, for sure

Archival Music Album Coming:

https://shop.mexicansummer.com/product/karen-black-dreaming-of-you/

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/jul/19/karen-black-hollywood-actor-singer-dreaming-of-you