Five Easy Pieces is a 1970 film written by Carole Eastman (as Adrien Joyce) and Bob Rafelson, and directed by Rafelson. It tells the story of Bobby Dupea (played by Jack Nicholson), a former piano prodigy who is estranged from his artistic upper class family. In the opening of the film, the character is working as an oil rigger. When his father becomes ill, he goes home to visit his family, reluctantly taking his diner waitress girlfriend with him. It stars Jack Nicholson, Karen Black, Susan Anspach, Billy Green Bush, Fannie Flagg, Lois Smith, and Sally Struthers.
A title sequence as written in the screenplay showed earlier scenes in the Dupea family's life, including 10-year-old Bobby's recital program music: (the apparently fictitious) Grebner's "Five Easy Pieces". However, the sequence was not used, and the film titles open instead with the adult Bobby at the oil rigs.
The soundtrack employed five songs by Tammy Wynette, including "Stand By Your Man."
The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Jack Nicholson), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Karen Black), Best Picture and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Factual Material or Material Not Previously Published or Produced.
In 2000, Five Easy Pieces was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Also the notable filmmakers Lars Von Trier, Joel and Ethan Coen, Ingmar Bergman, and the award-winning novelists Cormac McCarthy and William Gaddis have expressed deep admiration for the movie.
Famous scene
The waitress, Bobby, Rayette, and two hitchhikers.
The movie's most famous scene takes place in a roadside restaurant where Bobby tries to get a waitress (Lorna Thayer) to bring him toast with his breakfast, which is not on the menu. Despite appeals to logic and common sense, the waitress adamantly sticks to the rules of the restaurant, so Bobby orders "a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast, no mayonnaise, no butter, no lettuce." Then he tells the waitress to "hold the chicken...between your knees."
The waitress then indignantly orders them to leave, upon which Nicholson knocks the drinks off the table with a sweep of his arm.
The scene is iconic as a metaphor for the rebellious, free spirit of the youth of the late 1960s and early 1970s, a strong theme in the film as a whole. Thirty years later Nicholson would perform a scene in the movie About Schmidt which directly drew from this scene (available as a "Deleted Scene" extra on the DVD release). Nicholson's character in About Schmidt, an emotionally downtrodden retiree, in contrast, humbly accepts the waitress' "no substitutions" rule.
Trivia
The five classical piano pieces--not necessarily "easy"--played in the movie are:
External links
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