Easy Rider - Billy
This was the film that embodied the spirit of the 60's or at least it was the film that pop culture thought embodied the spirit of the 60's. What Easy Rider really was was the embodiment of the freedom that America always advertizes but rarely delivers. This film more than any other conveyed why most people prefer NOT to be free. This was Dennis Hopper's Citizen Kane, the work that both defined and destroyed him. although Hopper unlike Orsen Wells was able to make his peace with hollywood. Hopper like Wells started out as a golden boy starring along with James Dean at the cutting edge of the method acting world, but after Dean's death only Hopper, Jack Nicholson(rarely considered a methodman because he is so good at it),Deniro, Pacino, Duvall and Walken seemed to continue true method acting in the post Brando world...
"What the hell is wrong with freedom? That's what it's all about"
Apocalypse Now - The PhotoJournalist
The truth was Hopper was as drug crazed as his character during the shooting of Francis Ford Coppola's Viet Namese Magnus Opus.
"Do you know that 'if' is the middle word in life? If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you"... I mean I'm... no, I can't... I'm a little man, I'm a little man, he's... he's a great man! I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across floors of silent seas..."
Blue Velvet - Frank Booth
I was never a huge David Lynch fan, but Hopper took the role of Frank Booth, the kidnapping, torturing, nitrous oxide inhaling psychpath to unbelieveable levels of awesome weirdness. Here are some memorable quotes:
"Don't be a good neighbor anymore to her. I'll have to send you a love letter! Straight from my heart, fucker! You know what a love letter is? It's a bullet from a fucking gun, fucker! You receive a love letter from me, and you're fucked forever! You understand, fuck? I'll send you straight to hell, fucker!... In dreams... I walk with you. In dreams... I talk to you. In dreams, you're mine... all the time. Forever"
"Hey, neighbor! You shit-for-brains, man! You forgot I have a police radio! One well-dressed fuckin' man knows where your fuckin' cute little butt's hidin'! Stupid fuck! Fuck with me, man! Here I come, ready or not! You fuck! I can hear your fuckin' radio, you stupid shit! You got about one fuckin' second to live, buddy! You're one sorry piece of shit, mister. Hey, pretty, pretty! What the fuck? Where are you? Where are you?"
True Romance - Clifford Worley
This scene is a masterpiece on so many levels: the writing is seminal Tarrentino, the direction from Tony Scott stiches together many qualities of the characters as the give and take between Hopper and Walken explodes into laughter and terror,...but for me the incredulous look on Walken's characters face is the money
"...if that's a fact, tell me, am I lying? 'Cause you, you're part eggplant"
Shaking The Cage - Awesome documentary about the making of Easy Rider
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