Five Easy Pieces

October 228:30pm
There will be a post-screening Q&A with film historian Nick Smedley.

Class is not an unusual subject in American cinema, even if it too often revolves around nostalgia for the old neighbourhood or clichéd tales of social mobility, but Five Easy Pieces is unusual in its class antagonism. This is a film with little love and a lot of hate. For all that the characters are unsympathetic, they are also very human and finely drawn, largely because of the screenplay by Carole Eastman (under the pseudonym Adrien Joyce) and the excellent lead performances.

In the person of Jack Nicholson’s Bobby Dupea, a former upper-class child prodigy (the title refers to piano exercises) who has rejected his family in Washington state for life as a blue-collar oil field worker in California, this antagonism goes well beyond snobbery (or inverted snobbery) to touch on the sort of existential themes more familiar from European arthouse cinema.

Bobby is unable to rebuild relations with his estranged family but equally incapable of forging a meaningful life with Rayette (Black), the waitress girlfriend whom he both desires and despises. Ultimately, he both fears himself and hates what he has become. 

The angry not-so-young man proved a career-defining role for Nicholson, and a character that he would revisit in Michelangelo Antonioni’s The Passenger (1975), where a journalist decides to desert his life for another identity, and Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980), in which he heads to a place that is “very cold” and clearly the end of the road.

“Five Easy Pieces is considered to be the quintessential film of the beginning of the seventies. This thoughtful character study offers a thorough portrayal of the alienation and restlessness of the American middle classes, rocked into instability by the shifting, unpredictable political situation and leaders like Nixon who proved to be everything but trustworthy.” Sven Mikulec – Cinephilia & Beyond.

“When we sense the boy, tormented and insecure, trapped inside the adult man, “Five Easy Pieces” becomes a masterpiece of heartbreaking intensity.” Roger Ebert (1970).


Film Information
Release year: 1970
Running time:   98 mins
Directed by: Bob Rafelson
Language: English
Country: USA
Classification:
Genre: Drama
Starring: Jack Nicholson,
Karen Black,
Billy Green Bush,
Susan Anspach,
Lois Smith
Awards: Golden Globe Best Supporting Actress (Black);
Oscars 4 Nominations
More info:

IMDb
Rotten Tomatoes

Member (including lifetime member) £8
Member’s guest £12
Under-30 or full-time student £8

Tickets go on sale to non-members on October 12.

Tickets booked online can be refunded via Eventbrite if you are unable to attend, but only up to 24 hours before the screening. Refunds will incur an Eventbrite handling fee for all ticket types.

When booking tickets via Eventbrite you will have the opportunity to opt in to WFC emails re future screenings.

Carers are eligible for free tickets and the Curzon can provide two wheelchair spaces on notice. Please contact us in advance.

NB: The programme will start sharply at the advertised time (there are no adverts), so please arrive sufficiently early if you wish to buy drinks or snacks from the Curzon bar.

We may occasionally take photographs of the audience. If you don’t wish to be photographed, please inform the photographer or a member of the committee.


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