{"id":433,"date":"2014-07-10T01:02:55","date_gmt":"2014-07-10T01:02:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=433"},"modified":"2026-05-15T17:29:51","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T21:29:51","slug":"five-easy-pieces-1970","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=433","title":{"rendered":"Five Easy Pieces-1970"},"content":{"rendered":"

Five Easy Pieces-1970<\/strong><\/p>\n

Director Bob Rafelson<\/strong><\/p>\n

Starring Jack Nicholson, Karen Black<\/strong><\/p>\n

Scott’s Review #101<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"507725\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Reviewed July 10, 2014<\/p>\n

Grade: A-<\/strong><\/p>\n

Five Easy Pieces (1970) is Jack Nicholson’s first leading role, and as one watches the film now, it is evident that the character of Bobby Dupea influenced many of his later performances.<\/p>\n

The film is a quiet character study of a talented yet unhappy concert pianist who gives up his privileged life of affluence and performing to lead a simple, blue-collar life on an oil rig and date a neurotic, lonely waitress, played wonderfully by Karen Black.<\/p>\n

He returns, via a road trip, to his upper-class family to visit his ailing father.<\/p>\n

With Black in tow, they travel from California to remote Washington, with a couple of excellent scenes involving two angry at-life female hitchhikers, and a cold waitress at a coffee shop where Nicholson performs his infamous “chicken sandwich” scene.<\/p>\n

It is a story of one man’s loneliness and his conflict between the two lives he has lived and his turmoil at deciding where he belongs- a conflict many people wrestle with.<\/p>\n

He is not a happy man.<\/p>\n

Karen Black is excellent as the needy, clingy girlfriend, and Sally Struthers has a small, yet interesting part as a flirtatious girl.<\/p>\n

The film drags at times, moving very slowly, but it does an excellent job of getting inside one man’s mind and sharing the pain with the audience.<\/p>\n

The film is nuanced, as the conflict Dupea feels pulls at his very being, and this is conveyed incredibly well. The final scene is simply mesmerizing in its power.<\/p>\n

Five Easy Pieces (1970) is a purely character-driven and wonderfully life-questioning film.<\/p>\n

Oscar Nominations<\/strong>: Best Picture, Best Actor-Jack Nicholson, Best Supporting Actress-Karen Black, Best Story or Screenplay Based on Factual Material or Material Not Previously Published or Produced<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Five Easy Pieces-1970 Director Bob Rafelson Starring Jack Nicholson, Karen Black Scott’s Review #101 Reviewed July 10, 2014 Grade: A- Five Easy Pieces (1970) is Jack Nicholson’s first leading role, and as one watches the film now, it is evident that the character of Bobby Dupea influenced many of his later performances. The film is … Continue reading Five Easy Pieces-1970<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,9738,8934,192,8937,874,11082,890,1807,8936,8935,7309],"tags":[65,9744,8938,193,8941,875,11086,891,1809,8940,8939,7316],"class_list":["post-433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1970-films","category-billy-green-bush","category-bob-rafelson","category-dramas","category-fannie-flagg","category-jack-nicholson","category-john-p-ryan","category-karen-black","category-lois-smith","category-sally-struthers","category-susan-anspach","category-toni-basil","tag-1970-movie-reviews","tag-billy-green-bush","tag-bob-rafelson","tag-dramas-2","tag-fannie-flagg","tag-jack-nicholson","tag-john-p-ryan","tag-karen-black","tag-lois-smith","tag-sally-struthers","tag-susan-anspach","tag-toni-basil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=433"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22386,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433\/revisions\/22386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}