Where Even Mavericks Have a Home

Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 It's impossible to chart a straight path from Salt of the Earth to Easy Rider (1969), but the two films aren't completely at odds. Hopper and Fonda's rebels also challenged the status quo, rejecting, in Hopper's words, "the good old American way." But while Salt of the Earth met with stony indifference, Easy Rider inspired stoned allegiance on the part of a new generation that closely identified with its long-haired, drug-taking antiheroes.

As inarticulate as they could be, Captain America and Billy epitomized the alienated tenor of the times. They dropped out, turned on, did their own thing, and ultimately, crashed and burned. In many ways, their ugly fate mirrored the drift of the nation. Flower power and the Summer of Love already had withered away by the time Easy Rider reached theaters. The youthful idealism of the '60s had splintered and turned sour under the shocking impact of Altamont, the Tate-Bianca murders and similarly dark incidents.

When Fonda's Captain America declares "we blew it," he's addressing the failed promises of the counterculture as well as expressing his disenchantment with "The System." New Mexico, in the film, retains a utopian aura as perhaps the only safe haven from the impending, apocalyptic storm. At the time, the state harbored some 30 hippie communes, leading poet Robert Creeley to describe it as "the goyim's Israel." The reserved Captain America waxes poetically himself when he and Billy visit a commune near Taos, skinny dipping with a couple of the free-spirited residents and observing a spring planting. "This is nothing but sand, man. They ain't gonna make it, man," Billy says, forecasting doom for the freak farmers. "They're going to make it," Captain America answers. "Dig, man. They're going to make it."

But even here, we're offered our first clues that these two wanderers won't be so lucky. Playing with a pack of hippie children, Billy shouts out "bang, bang" as he exchanges imaginary gunfire. "You can't hit me," he taunts. "I'm invisible. I'm invisible." The mud that splatters across his chest suggests otherwise.

The funniest New Mexico reference belongs to George Hanson, the alcoholic ACLU lawyer played by Jack Nicholson, who joins Captain America and Billy on their journey to Mardi Gras. Waking with a wicked hangover after an all-night binge, Hanson takes a nip from his Jim Beam and toasts the dawn: "Here's to the first of the day, fellas. To ol' D.H. Lawrence. Nik-nik-nik-f-f-f-Indians."