Title: FIVE EASY PIECES

Date: 6/15/1995; Publication: Magill's Survey of Cinema;

Magill's Survey of Cinema

06-15-1995

FIVE EASY PIECES

Abstract:
Robert Eroica Dupea (Jack Nicholson) has sought to escape his wealthy, intellectual background through a job as an oil-rigger and a relationship with the brassy Rayette (Karen Black). When he learns his father has had a stroke, however, he drives to his home in the state of Washington to visit his family, and he meets an attractive piano student named Catherine (Susan Anspach).


Summary:
On the surface, it may not seem that a feature such as FIVE EASY PIECES would have had a wide public appeal; it was both thoughtful and intelligent and had nothing to do with the youth problems of the 1960's. Instead, it was a comedy-drama of a mature man's search for his own identity, and the fact that it elicited a positive response from moviegoers is indicative of its realistic treatment of a psychological problem that many have faced, particularly during the troubled decade in which the film is set.

FIVE EASY PIECES tells the story of Robert Eroica Dupea (Jack Nicholson), formerly a brilliant concert pianist, who has now abandoned his old life-style, adopted a fake Southern accent, and taken a job as an oil-rigger in the Southern California oil fields. He has completely turned away from classical music and from his old friends and is living with a featherbrained woman named Rayette Dipesto (Karen Black); their best friends are his fellow worker, Elton (Billy "Green" Bush), and his wife Stoney (Fannie Flagg). Why Dupea is masquerading like this and seeking the company of people so far removed from his intellectual background remains something of a mystery. When he learns that Rayette is pregnant, he quits his job and abandons her, realizing that she is trying to trap him into marriage.

Dupea goes into Los Angeles and attends a recording session of his sister, Partita (Lois Smith), who, like him, is an accomplished pianist. It is evident now that he is no common oil laborer; he is the music-oriented and very brilliant son of a family of wealthy and eccentric musicians who has been unable to run from what he calls his "auspicious beginnings." Partita, however, informs him that their father has had a stroke which has paralyzed his vocal chords, and is now confined to his home in the state of Washington.

Dupea, meanwhile, cannot shake Rayette, so he takes her with him when he drives north to Washington to visit his dying father. On the way there is a brilliant interlude when they pick up a couple of female hitch-hikers, one of them a brassy lesbian who is thumbing her way to Alaska with her girl friend because they are obsessed with cleanliness and have heard that Alaska is ecologically clean. They go to a roadside restaurant, and, in the most memorable sequence of the film, Dupea deliberately quarrels with the waitress and the owner. This whole sequence is brilliantly executed, and although it is admittedly a deviation from the main story line, it, more than anything else, explains Dupea's psyche and sets the stage for his subsequent behavior when he reaches his father's home.

He realizes that Rayette is too offbeat to present to his family, so he deposits her in a nearby motel and goes on to his father's home by himself. He dines there with his father, who has been painfully stricken dumb, his sister, and Catherine Van Ost (Susan Anspach), a charming piano student who is visiting the family with her boyfriend. Dupea immediately recognizes in Catherine the kind of girl who is in every way right for him. He boldly woos her, and although she resists his advances at first, she is attracted, and they make love.

Rayette rebels at being installed in a motel, and appears on the scene as Dupea's sweetheart. The family is coolly amused by her brashness, and they invite her to stay with them. Dupea is furious with her, but helpless to control her behavior. Furthermore, he has a disappointing confrontation with his father, and when he asks Catherine to go away with him, she turns him down because he lacks stability. Dupea leaves, and Rayette, who sticks to him like a leech, accompanies him on the way back to Los Angeles. He realizes that she is the most exasperating female he has ever encountered, and at a truck stop he manages to ditch her and get a ride back to somewhere else with a compatible truck driver. He has left his car for her, but wants nothing more to do with her, for he is off on a new journey to find himself in a new way. The title FIVE EASY PIECES does not refer to the sexual conquests of the main character as many filmgoers believe, but to the name of an elementary book of music which all piano students know; once they have learned that quintet of "easy" pieces, they are ready to learn advanced compositions. In other words, once they have mastered the basics, they are ready for the real compositions. Likewise, Dupea, once he has found himself, may be ready to face life.

More than one critic has commented that, in style, the film is more French than it is Hollywood, more like Truffaut's SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER (1960) or Eric Rohmer's MY NIGHT AT MAUD'S (1969). Its screenplay by Adrien Joyce (from a story by Bob Rafelson and Adrien Joyce) is immaculately constructed, and although it won an Academy Award nomination, the Oscar went to the writers of PATTON (1970). The film is neatly directed by Bob Rafelson, who had previously worked with Nicholson in a film the latter wrote, entitled HEAD (1968).

Jack Nicholson has acted in a series of "B" pictures from 1957 to 1969, and had a devoted following by the time he played the lawyer who takes to the road with Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper in EASY RIDER (1969). Nicholson has a kind of wry, provocative amusement in his eyes that makes him ideal for the casually inconoclastic characters he plays so well. His success has continued in all his subsequent films, including CARNAL KNOWLEDGE (1971), THE LAST DETAIL (1973), CHINATOWN (1974), and, finally, the picture that brought him an Academy Award in 1975, ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST.


Release Date: 1970

Production Line:
Bob Rafelson and Richard Wechsler for Columbia

Director: Bob Rafelson

Cinematographer: Laszlo Kovacs

File Editor: Christopher Holmes and Gerald Sheppard

Run Time: 98 minutes

Cast:
Robert Eroica Dupea - Jack Nicholson
Rayette Dipesto - Karen Black
Partita Dupea - Lois Smith
Catherine Van Ost - Susan Anspach
Elton - Billy "Green" Bush
Stoney - Fannie Flagg
Betty - Sally Ann Struthers
Nicholas Dupea - William Challee
Carl Fidelio Dupea - Ralph Waite
Palm Apodaca - Helena Kallianiotes
Terry Grouse - Toni Basil
Twinky - Marlena MacGuire
Spicer - John Ryan
Samia Glavia - Irene Dailey
Waitress - Lorna Thayer
Recording Engineer - Richard Stahl
Betty - Sally Ann Struthers

Review Sources:
Newsweek: December 21, 1970, p.14
New York Times: September 12, 1970, p.31
Time: September 14, 1970, p.89
Variety: September 16, 1970, p.15

Named persons in Production Credits:
Bob Rafelson
Richard Wechsler

Studios named in Production Credits:
Columbia

Screenplay (Author):
Adrien Joyce
Bob Rafelson

Color



Video Available.
Genre:
Drama

Award Citations:
Academy Awards - Nomination - Best Picture
Academy Awards - Nomination - Best Actor - Jack Nicholson
Academy Awards - Nomination - Best Supporting Actress - Karen Black
Academy Awards - Nomination - Best Story & Screenplay (based on factual medium or material not previously
Golden Globe Award - Winner - Best Supporting Actress - Karen Black
National Society of Film Critics - Winner - Best Supporting Actress - Lois Smith
New York Film Critics - Winner - Best Motion Picture
New York Film Critics - Winner - Best Supporting Actress - Karen Black
New York Film Critics - Winner - Best Direction - Bob Rafelson published) - Bob Rafelson, Adrien Joyce

Return to Main Articles Menu Page or Return to Home