All language subtitles for Shaking.the.Cage.(Doc)-Grym

Peter had made a motorcycle movie
called Wild Angels...

...which was a big, big success.

And Jack Nicholson had made one
called Hells Angels on Wheels.

And I'd made one
called The Glory Stompers.

So Peter and I promised each other
we wouldn't make a bike movie.

We wanted to do anything
but make a motorcycle movie...

...because we were afraid
that we were gonna become...

...the John Wayne and, you know,
Gabby Hayes of bike films.

I went to Toronto to promote The Trip.

So I was there on the first day
at this big exhibition.

Jack Valenti is up at this big table
of bigwigs.

And he's the new boy in the block.

LBJ had just appointed him...

...had just created a thing called the
Motion Picture Association of America.

And Jack's up there.

This is his first public utterance:

�My friends, you are my friends."

And looking right at me:

�We have to stop making movies
about motorcycles, sex and drugs...

...and make more movies
like Dr. Doolittle."

I went back to the Lakeshore Motel,
smoked a couple of doobs...

...had some Heineken, sat down
and began to sign photographs.

I came upon one photograph
from The Wild Angels.

So the doobs and the Heine kicked
right in and I fell into the photograph.

Oh, that's it.

I know what to do for my next
sex-motorcycle-and-drugs movie.

First thing I thought of
was these two guys...

...who have done this journey
across America...

...and that they get bumped off
by these guys who were poachers.

I'd call Hopper,
and it was about 4:30 in the morning.

He woke me up in the middle of the
night. He said, "What do you think?"

I said, "Did they tell you
they'd give you the money?�

And I said, �You direct, I'll produce.

We'll both write and we'll both act.
We can save some money."

Dennis said,
�You want me to direct?�

I knew that Dennis would be
the perfect person to direct this film.

And I wasn't wrong.

We'd gone through the whole '60s...

...and the '60s
had been such a fascinating time.

There'd been no movies made...

...that had anything to do
with our reality.

I mean, a movie that was made
the year that we made Easy Rider...

...was Doris Day and Rock Hudson
made Pillow Talk.

The young kind of movies
were being made for kids...

...were Beach Blanket Bingo,
you know, with Frankie Avalon.

They had very little to do with
the reality of Haight-Ashbury...

...or the reality
of the hippy love-ins.

So much was happening
at that moment.

The visual arts were exploding.

The music was exploding.

All these creative things
had happened...

...and basically this was tapping into
the end of it.

Pop art had already happened.

Rock 'n' roll had already happened.

The Summer of Love was over.

I was in Roscoff
in the West Coast of France in 1967...

...shooting a film with Jane.

One afternoon,
I hear some scuffling on the stairs...

...and into my room walks
Terry Southern...

...who had been in Rome
looking at Barbarella...

...that he had written
for Jane and Vadim.

Terry wanted to know,
�What are you doing?

I told him the story of what Dennis
and I were getting up to.

And Terry knew Dennis.

Terry said, �Den-Den, huh?

Well, what's your plan?�

I said, "Well, you know...

...we really don't want to write it
into a screenplay form.

We're too impatient for it.

So we want to find somebody
who will just mechanically write it...

...into a screenplay form for us...

...and then we'll go out
and shoot the film."

Terry said, "I'm your guy."

I said, "Terry,
your fee is the budget of the film.

Come on, give me a break.�

�No, you don't understand, Peter.
I'm your guy."

We all got together
and began to work it out.

By the time we'd spent
about five days together...

...we had it locked into a story
that I recorded on tape...

.-.and it was transcribed
and made out of 21 pages...

...and that's what we went back
to Hollywood with.

So we went in to Bob Rafelson,
Bert Schneider and our friends...

...who had just made The Monkees
and had this tremendous success.

And Jack Nicholson was there
because they were making Head.

And that's how Jack fell into it also.

Rafelson said, "It's the most
commercial story I've ever heard.

Well, how much do you want
for this movie?"

I said, �$350,000,.

I wasn't prepared for it.
I just thought:

�Well, that's how much it cost
Corman to shoot The Wild Angels.

I can do the same. No problem."

I said, "We ought to go
to Mardi Gras...

...because we'll have a hundred
thousand people in costume.

We won't have to pay for it."

And Bert wrote us a check
for $40,000 to go shoot Mardi Gras.

And Schneider said,
�This is your test.

I'm giving you money to shoot
this 16 mm thing. If this works, fine.

If it doesn't,
you're not going on with this picture."

There was some confusion...

...about when Mardi Gras
actually took place.

So they were caught
and they didn't have anything...

...except a number of volunteers.

I had to suddenly jam and get friends
with 16 mm cameras together...

...to go and shoot in Mardi Gras,
which is already a disastrous idea.

The night before they travelled
to New Orleans, they had a meeting.

People would say,
�Gee, okay, we need a gaffer.

Who wants to be a gaffer?�

And, you know, somebody-
�Okay, you're the gaffer."

It was like that. It was just--

I went, "Oh, my God,
this can't work.�

I mean, I wasn't that organized.
But I was appalled.

And they all thought they were the first
cameraman. They all thought that.

We were all out of our minds.
Half of us were on acid.

We'd go to a meeting
in a conference room.

Dennis and Peter
are sitting up there.

�Dude, we gotta be careful here,
because they know what we're doing."

I said, "Dennis,
who knows what we're doing?"

He said, "The government."

I said, "The government?

Well, why?
What are we doing that they know?"

He said, "They know that we're here
to make this movie."

And I said, �Well, how do they know
what the movie's about?

We don't have a fucking script.
How the fuck can they know that?"

He said, "They know, man.

Man, they know
because of who we are."

I said, "Who are we, man?"

Seymour Cassel
was one of the camera assistants.

You know, this is great.

It was a nightmare.

And I was so convinced
that we had to do this right and so on.

I was a maniac.

I'd tell them, "Nobody's to film
anything unless I tell them to."

Every time I look around,
there's a guy shooting out the window.

Because they all wanted
to be directors. It was a nightmare.

It was a prison-like atmosphere.

Dennis was quite afraid
that we would get some idea...

...that we should go shopping.

And then he wouldn't have us
in that exact inspired moment...

...when he had something to shoot.

So he used to say,
�Are you there? Are you there?"

And we'd--
Toni and I would look at each other.

�Yes, why?"

"I don't know, I just want you there."

Dennis would get into an argument
with one of the cameramen.

�Give it to me, it's my camera."
He'd go off and shoot without Peter.

We were supposed to be
in the parade.

If you look at the film carefully...

...you'll see that we're never
in the parade.

There's one shot
where I'm in the parade.

I could not believe
what was going on.

And I'm the producer.

A lot of people quit.

So they started to come back
the second or third day.

And they'd all come by the office,
and just tell me these horror stories.

I was taking a shower,
I guess trying to wash the day off.

It was so amazing.

It's like I cleaned up and dried off...

...put on a T-shirt and some jeans
and jacket and went next door...

...where Karen Black and Toni Basil
were bunked together...

...picked up Karen's guitar
and started playing...

...songs and, you know,
vocation love.

There's a scuffle going on outside.

I was drawn to the scuffle,
and out there is Barry Feinstein...

...holding his $30,000,
three-lens combo Aeroflex.

And Barry Feinstein
is a Golden Gloves champion, right?

While Dennis is kicking at him
and trying to get the camera--

Barry Feinstein and I get in a fight.

They're rolling around and fighting.

Got all the film in my room
and he starts throwing it.

The room is full of film.

Said, "You worked me, ran me through
the streets night and day.

And you're screaming about
how Orson Welles had failed...�

The fight fell into the room
with the two girls.

And upside down,
Dennis tumbles through the door.

We go crashing in through a door...

...where Peter's in bed
with Karen and Toni.

Dennis picked up the guitar,
Karen's guitar...

...and slammed it over Barry.

Dennis was sitting on him.
Pinned to the floor.

Picks up the television,
threw it at Barry.

Dennis looked at him and he says--
And he meant it.

"I love you, man. Man, I love you.�

The whole thing has been
like a Rash�mon experience.

The whole movie,
the entire production.

Everybody's got
an entirely different story on the thing.

Terry Southern, a grown-up.

Someone who can put order in here.

Someone who can make it pragmatic
and workable.

So we all had a meeting.

Dennis was going:

Terry said:

"I don't think I can bear the cacophony
of your speech much longer."

Dennis said, "The cacophony, huh?
The cacophony of my speech, huh?"

And they were, like,
having these arguments and things.

And nothing was decided.

So we started this very badly.

This did not start off
as some friends now making a movie.

The big schism seemed
to have come down in New Orleans.

They never were the same
after that.

And they argued considerably...

...throughout the remainder
of the picture.

They started out great pals...

...and they didn't end up great pals
at all.

But they could pretend they
were great pals to the outside world.

And they did for years.

Next thing
was to get the script done, 30...

Now, there's a lot of controversy
about that.

But basically...

...Terry Southern had been
one of the original producers.

And Terry ducked out
after the New Orleans debacle.

So we made a deal with Terry
to be one of the writers on the project.

We decided to shut down
and get a screenplay written...

...and hire a real crew
of real people...

...and get kind of professional
about the whole thing.

We hired a production manager
named Paul Lewis.

I had done a series of pictures
with Jack Nicholson.

Jack and I were talking.
He says, �Have I got a thing for you.

I've got a great picture for you to do.

It's a bike picture
and it's with two crazies.

But at least you have one guy there
who will drink with you.�

Here's to the first of the day, fellas.

At the time, we were making
a low-budget motorcycle movie.

I didn't think
we were doing anything.

Dennis always thought
we were doing something special.

The movie was like a Western
to me.

I thought of Wyatt as Wyatt Earp...

...and I thought of Billy
as Billy the Kid...

...and these two thrown together
as partners.

For me, it was a Western idiom
we were working with.

Riding the motorcycle
and wearing spurs.

I was the Duke,
Dennis was Wardell...

...and we're going to cross
John Ford's America.

It's a couple of guys in leather
and riding horses...

...they're riding like motorcycles.

They camp out around campfires.

They're the bad guys.
They're outlaws.

If you look at The Wild One...

...that was the beginning
of glamorizing the biker...

...as the kind of fantasy outlaw.

And what that did
is it created the atmosphere...

...to allow the Hell's Angels
to become the big gang.

The same time that we were making
Easy Rider in 1968...

...the whole country was ablaze.

The Black Panthers
were causing riots everywhere...

...and the cities were burning.

We were living in a society
that was amoral...

...because we could no longer believe
in the mores of the society...

...and that we were all breaking
the laws of society.

People wanted change.

They wanted us out of the war.

They wanted a different kind of life.

Everybody was giving away
acid and the be-ins and the love-ins.

Everyone was smoking dope.

If you didn't have it,
somebody else had it.

Everybody shared.
It was a nice feeling.

It all changed
and then harder drugs came in.

It became a business.

When hard drugs started
to come in...

...being dealt by people who had
absolutely no values whatsoever...

...that was the beginning
of the end of it.

When we first started doing--
Mescal came before acid, actually.

We were just looking
for a different take on things.

Because of smoking marijuana...

...and the kind of things
that we were doing in the '60s...

...it seemed like everyone
was outside of the law at that time.

The exec producer told us:

�You can't have heroes
who smuggle hard narcotics.

Can you do it with grass?"

And then I looked at Hopper
and I said:

�Well, yeah, if we have three Peterbilt,
triple-tractor trailers waiting for us.

We couldn't really get that much
marijuana on a motorcycle...

...you know, to make it interesting,
money-wise.

I changed that to cocaine...

...because heroin
had just a bad connotation to it.

And cocaine was the drug of kings,
and nobody really knew what it was.

I didn't really wanna make it a drug
you could identify.

It was just a white powder.

I wanted the moralists
in the country...

...to feel whatever
was the worst drug for them.

That was what this was.

And that we would score this
in a junkyard.

In Mexico,
scoring junk in a junkyard.

Hopper loved that thought.

He also promised
he'd give me real coke.

It's a test.

Oh, man, I tell you.
Powdered sugar really hurts.

I'd flown into LAX
with John Lear in a Learjet...

...and looking out the window I saw
this is a public road.

And I just thought,
�This is really wild.

This would be a great place
to do a scene...

...where there's so much noise,
you can't hear what goes on...

...but you know what's going on."

Planes were landing from 20 feet
to 50 feet over our heads...

...almost every minute,
every minute and a half.

And every time a plane went,
everybody was ducking down.

There were the planes
roaring overhead or taking off.

And at the same time,
a train went by...

...carrying half-tracks and tanks
on its way to Vietnam.

And I said, �Mixed media.�

And we elected not
to put the tanks in the original...

...because we did not wanna make
a film about or against...

...or any judgment
on the war in Vietnam.

We got Phil because he had
his own Rolls-Royce...

...so we picked up that free.

And his own bodyguard.
Another one we picked up for free.

But we ran into some problems
because Phil really was scared.

By the end of the day,
people were ready to kill each other...

...because you couldn't hear,
you couldn't talk to anybody...

_..and the first day of the picture
was almost the last day of the film.

One of the first things I did
after I talked with Hopper...

...was I drew out the pictures
of the motorcycle...

...with the teardrop gas tank.

It's extended with the far front end,
the two big Harley V-Twin peppers.

I'm just riding one big phallic
down the road.

The California Chopper,
of which those are representative...

...was all about style
and made no sense at all.

The bikes that they're based on,
the Harley-Davidson Police bike...

...they were '40s police bikes.

They had a rigid frame.
They didn't have a rear suspension.

But they had
an amazing seat suspension.

The seat took all the abuse.

You were semi-protected
from the vagaries of the highway...

...by the seat.

But, of course, the stylistic thing...

...was to get the seat as close
as you could to the frame of the bike...

...so you could sit
as low as possible...

...and have that kind of look
with the ape hangery.

So they took away the one thing...

._.that saved you
from losing your back altogether.

There's a lot of guys
that used to ride those things...

...that can't even begin
to ride a motorcycle.

We had to cross every bridge
that Dennis could find.

And sometimes they had planks...

...running parallel
to the run of the bridge...

...with spaces wider and smaller...

...and that from end
would get a little squirrelly.

Our first day of riding,
which was only a 55-mile ride--

But we crossed the Colorado River
about a dozen times.

They weren't motorcycles...

...that you drove back and forth
across the country.

Nobody had tried that, I don't think.

There must be some nutcases
that did...

...but no rational human being
tried it.

L�szl� Kov�cs was the greatest
telephoto operator I've ever seen.

Our camera car was hysterical.

What we would do
is knock the camera...

...either in a convertible
or on the back of a station wagon.

Soft tires, back seats out.

Just some sandbags and an Aeroflex
and L�szl�.

One moment when were riding...

...Dennis swings to his left
and L�szl� pulls out.

It's just like Dennis is pushing the
frame right when you're watching it.

It's a great shot.

L�szl� was just so hip
that he saw Dennis swinging...

...and started pulling back.

And I did this very subconsciously.

I wasn't designing this shot
a night before and storyboard it.

It comes out of an instinct,
you know?

And they responded.

Well, when I was swinging my arm,
he swings over to the other side.

It was just a wonderful--
Almost like a musical ballet.

ABC Leathers had made two jackets
and one set of pants for me.

And I wore the outfit all the time.

In fact, I'd gotten in a bathtub
with the pants on.

I got them all wet
and then let them dry with me...

...and my legs bent...

...so they would look
like I'd been born in them.

So it was a hot day, we'd stop.

We're waiting.
I'm getting hot in the black leathers.

By the time we got to Kingman...

...we were all gonna go out by the pool
to have a cocktail.

And I thought, �That sounds cool."
I got into my room...

...peeled off the leathers. I had these
purple legs from the dye of the pants.

I was very embarrassed
about my skinniness.

I said, �I'm not about to go out
with skinny purple legs."

So I pulled on some clean pants,
and went to the bar and I said:

�Bring me the tallest, coldest beer
you have.�

So they came with this big stein.
Glass stein.

Frosted at that.

And I grabbed it, thinking to myself:

�Shit, man, this is the first day
on the road with the movie.

You know, my first production.
This is wonderful.

All these people. We're all together,
making this movie."

I just picked up the beer,
couldn't move it to my face.

I could pick it up, put it down,
but no hinge.

So nobody saw that one.
I'll wait and grab it with the other arm.

Pick it up and it won't move.

And then I just try without the beer.

I can't make my hands
move to this part of my body.

Because for the entire day,
at 25 miles an hour-

Because you had to see
the background.

You could not go fast.

With my hands up in the air
so high--

And they're just hanging on...

...trying to keep this sucker
from going over.

At faster speeds, it was easy to ride.

At slow speeds,
it was a major bitch.

I couldn't put anything
in my mouth.

I couldn't even smoke a joint.

Where you fellas from?

LA.

L.A.?

Los Angeles.

Dennis wanted Warren,
who played the farmer--

He said, "Maybe you should do it
without your teeth.�

Now, no actor wants to work
without their teeth.

He didn't have any from teeth.
He had these false teeth.

Hey, baby. Hey, baby.

How you doing?

And Warren had been
the original Leach...

...in The Connection, off-Broadway.

He was just incredibly full of life.

We'd been smoking
since early that morning.

What we did was we drove along
in three Cortez's...

...and we'd jump out and shoot,
jump out and shoot...

...get back in the Cortez.

And we were diligently figuring out
what we were gonna say...

...and, of course, it started coming out
very serious and very heavy.

And by the time we got
to where we were gonna shoot...

...which is an Indian burial place--

And there were park rangers
standing there watching us.

They didn't want a pebble moved.

We sat there with the camera
running five minutes...

...before anybody said anything.

We were so loaded,
we didn't even know where we were.

This is a weird place, man.

Peter, I think, must have forgotten
that he was in front of the camera.

And I was actually
having some problems...

...because I was sitting closest
to the real fire.

The smoke was getting to me.

The smoke's getting to me.

So I said, �I don't see you moving.�

Because actually if he moved,
we're in his shot.

But I notice you're not moving.

Busted, you know?

And I went:

I laughed a full Fonda--

I wasn't Captain America at all.

You ever wanna be somebody else?

I'd like to try Porky Pig.

Porky Pig didn't have any more
meaning than anything else.

It was just the first thing
that came to my mind.

And as soon as I said it,
I was sorry...

...because I wished I had said
Daffy Duck.

Because Daffy Duck is somebody
that I've patterned a lot of my work on.

Where are you from, man?

Hard to say.

Hard to say?
Where are you from, man?

It's hard to say because
it's a very long word, you know?

I just wanna know
where you're from.

Some of the hostilities you'll see
between some of the people...

...show in some of the scenes.

Luke and Dennis may have
had words earlier in the day...

_..and I think you'll see some of
the hostilities in the way it was done...

...between the Porky Pig,
and, you know, certain things.

But that really worked
for the picture.

It was our first real day off.

And we all gathered in the lounge...

...of the Americana Inn in Flagstaff.

We put all these round tables out
in a circle...

...and we all were having a good time
and I had my 12-string guitar...

...and I was singing and playing
and we were having a grand old time...

...till some son of a bitch
came out from the real bar, drunk...

...staggered into the middle
of our circle...

...and started saying, "You hippies.
You fucking hippies, you know--"

And he's an ex-Marine
and he's thinking, "You peaceniks."

And he gets on a rant.

He pisses off quite a few people
on the show...

...some of whom even served
in Korea.

They picked him up,
put him outside the circle.

We all thought,
�That's good enough."

And as we all went
to sit down again...

._.he pulled Joyce's chair out.

Joyce King, our script clerk.

And she sat down, fell on the floor.

You do not fuck
with a film company...

...when they're all together.

We picked him up...

...put him down on the bar
as we all went sieg heil-ing.

Heil out of this bar
and into my room.

The whole company
went into Peter's room.

Everybody. And Peter
was sitting there rolling a lot of joints.

And everybody sat down.

Everybody in the company...

...including people
who had never done grass before.

Everybody sort of, like, smoked
and, you know, got a little high.

It was a nice start for the road trip.

It was hysterical, what went down.

I can't tell you.
I'd be invading people's privacies.

But it was absolutely hysterical
how that evening ended up.

And we bonded beautifully.

It kept the glue there
when it would get a little shaky.

Everybody was bonded
on a different level...

...and that held it together.

We'd heard about a commune
called New Buffalo.

And we're roaming around...

...and nobody knows anything
about this commune...

...which is maybe 10 miles
outside of town.

And there was
this Native American...

...who was absolutely drunk
and kept on coming up to us:

�I know you. I know you.
I know you."

I'm saying, "Come on, Dennis,
we gotta get out."

He says, �No, no.
Maybe this is the thing, you know?"

And the guy says, "Follow me."

So we get into our car
and he's in his truck...

...and he's breezing down the road.

And he takes us
and we end up in New Buffalo.

We spent three days trying
to convince them at New Buffalo...

...to let us film.

And they told us the stories
of their lives...

...they told us everything
that happened to them.

But they would not let us film.

The only time I ever had
anything to do with communes--

They were basically
pretty ugly scenes.

They were run by usually two
or three guys on a total power trip.

Total control
over some poor chicks...

...that they ran ragged.

Bunches of children around
that weren't being taken care of.

But this was
a polystyrene commune...

...in the hills of Malibu,
so a little different.

We shot the commune
in the Malibu Hills here in California...

...and we had the art director copy,
almost identically, New Buffalo.

We had sent some people down
Topanga Canyon...

...just to pick up hippies
wherever we could find them...

...so we could populate
this thing more.

When I first come in to the commune
and I'm fully clothed...

...and I leaned over the washbasin
and splash my face and my armpits...

...and I've got on a shin
and a jacket.

Why would a guy do that?

It was just something funny to do.

I felt at times the movie
was taking itself so seriously...

...that I had to harpoon it.

Hey, Sarah. How's it going?

I saw this guy mainly
as living off people in communes...

...by bringing them dope,
getting laid and moving on.

I didn't see this guy
as a spiritual messenger at all.

Dennis came up with the idea.

He started putting the people
in a circle...

_..and he was
at the same time telling me--

He says,
�We're gonna do a prayer.

And I wanna go through
all these faces."

And we're putting the camera right
on the top in the centre of the circle.

Suddenly, I'm looking around
and started seeing these faces.

It was almost
like a Renaissance painting.

All this hippy hair, faces, hats,
women, children.

It was just amazing collection
of young people.

It's one of my favourite shot
in the whole movie.

I gotta get out of here, man.

We got things we wanna do, man.

I gotta get out of here, man.

Peter's character would very likely
maybe stayed in the commune.

He seemed to be very happy
wherever he was.

He was son of okay, you know?
And I'm the one--

"we gotta keep going.
We gotta keep going."

We're not no travelling bureau, man.

- Why don't they get their own ride?
- Hey, hey, hey.

We're eating their food.

Dennis was the future.

Peter was the, you know--
Was what going on then.

Dennis may be the dark force...

...pulling this thing to a bad and.

When you get to the right place
with the right people...

...quarter this.

You know, this could be
the right place.

Your time's running out.

Hey, man. Hey!

If we're going, we're going. Let's go!

You could just tell
that if he stuck with Billy...

...and kept on doing
what he was doing...

...that one or both of them
were gonna wind up dead.

This hot pool
was on the Rio Grande.

It was really there.
And we're supposed to be all naked.

And the girls were very upset,
so they were saying:

�We can't have everybody
on the set.�

So Dennis made it a closed set
and everybody had to stand back.

One of the girls said,
�Somebody's looking."

You know, it was Bert looking
over the edge.

And Tom Ramsey,
who was the camera grip...

...had a pistol for snakes.

He told the girls,
�This is for snakes."

He shot at our executive producer.

How do we cut from the commune
to suddenly we're in a parade?

People accepted it because it was
a different kind of movie anyways.

The marching band
is America to me.

And marching without a permit
is something I knew quite a bit about...

...since I was in the Civil Rights
and trying to stop the war.

So we get in the parade
and we get busted...

...for parading without a permit.

We had to do that line.

You're in the parade, you're not.

You're on the bus,
you're not on the bus.

Parading without a permit?
You gotta be kidding.

Because-- I said, "An ACLU type
will see it go down...

...and bust us out of jail."

Dennis put the ACLU type
in jail with us.

I'm a lawyer.

Done a lot of work for the ACLU.

The thing in the prison
that Jack says...

...about they're cutting off their hairs
with rusty razor blades.

If you have long hair,
you guys are lucky, you know?

Those are things, stories
that I'd actually heard...

...that Paul and I had heard
about what was going on in Texas...

...and not to go through Texas.

They got this here...

...scissor-happy, beautify-America
thing here.

They used rusty razor blades
on the last two longhairs...

...they brought in.
I wasn't here to protect them.

We were running into these
young kids with their heads shaved.

Really been beaten badly
by Texas police.

And they would see us
and they would say:

�Do not go through Texas.
They're gonna catch you.

They're gonna shave your head
and kick the shit out of you."

We stopped, I bought Dennis a hat,
made him tuck his hair under the hat...

...and he wouldn't do it.

He was, "I'm not gonna go this way.
I'm going the way I'm going."

We get to the border, he said,
"I'm not going through Texas."

We had a guy along with us
called Gypsy...

...who was working with the bikes.

And Gypsy had a thing that he did...

...a physical thing
that he did all the time...

...which was he used to go:

And Jack saw it and usurped it...

...and adopted it for his character.

Indians!

We said to Gypsy,
�Don't ever do it again.

If you ever do it again, people are
gonna think you stole it from Jack."

Jack wasn't gonna be an actor
anymore. I remember he told me that.

He didn't want to be an actor.
I said, �What you gonna do?"

He says, "I wanna run a studio.�

Jack didn't originally
wanna do the picture.

Jack had reached the point...

...where he was not sure he wanted
to act anymore.

We had a production assistant
whose name was Chris.

And Chris...

...could roll a joint
better than anybody I ever saw.

And somewhere in there,
we bought...

...a kilo of marijuana for the picture.

Do this instead.

There's no time you see anybody
smoking dope in that movie...

...that it isn't dope.

No, man. This is grass.

You mean marijuana?

It was very hard for all of us
when Jack said:

�So this is marijuana."

Lord have mercy,
is that what that is?

I was amazed at the way Jack...

...was so much
this fellow George Hanson.

I was buying into it.

Go ahead. Light it up.

Oh, no, no, no...

...I couldn't do that.
I've got enough problems...

...with the booze and all.
I can't afford to get hooked.

The shooting of that
was magnificent...

...because I was getting
Nicholson loaded, you know?

Really good pot.

So when it came time
to shoot his end of it...

...he was really ripped.

I couldn't believe
that actors could do that.

They could get that loaded
and still remember to do anything.

You know, it's just--

It was a stunning kind
of eye-opener for me.

That was a UFO beaming back
at you.

Watch his eyes,
because you'll see him go up on:

�Meeting people of all walks of life."

He's lost it right there.

The Venusians...

_..have contacted people
at all walks of life...

...all walks of life...

That's a hell of a phrase,
"All walks of life"...

...when you try to put a visual to it.

All walks-- And if you're stoned,
it becomes hysterical.

And Jack went up,
laughed his ass off.

Well, we cut.
�Okay, that's a print and a pickup.�

And Jack starts:

�No, no, Dennis,
let me do it from the top."

Because he had been studying
very hard.

And Jack's just almost in tears,
begging.

And the camera's now rolling,
slated.

And Dennis says, "Okay, Jack."

And Jack's, "Where were we?"

And Joyce King,
the script person says:

�Meeting people
from all walks of life."

He starts it up just a bit before that
and goes through it.

Now Venusians are meeting
with people in all walks of life...

...in an advisory capacity.

What it becomes is a real moment...

...with somebody who's really stoned
who drops the thread.

In Morganza, Louisiana, in the cafe,
it was basically a segregated state.

And they had a white section
and a non-white section.

The best part of that cafe
was in the black section...

...because they had great music
in there and a great jukebox.

And the people who were there
were much looser and everything else.

Some of our crew went in the back
and were dancing to the music...

...and dancing with some
of the people who were in that section.

That added to the antagonism...

...and added to the hostilities.

The sheriff
who was actually in the picture said:

�Either you get them out of there
or I'm putting them in jail."

So I arrive at this place,
Morganza, Louisiana...

...this little coffee shop,
which is about all there is there.

I'd had this location scout go ahead.

And he would find actors that might
be suitable to be in the picture.

And I kept telling him: �Don't go to,
like, you know, little theatre groups.

I don't want little-- I want real people
and I'll try to work with them.�

Tony had lined up 50 or 60 people.

He had gone
to the local little theatre group.

And he had gotten
a group of actors together...

...who had all dressed up and looked
like they were ready to perform.

And I went,
�Oh, man, this is terrible."

So we arrived before anybody else
was there, as we walked in.

They're standing around there.
"I can smell them. Can you?�

They got fancy bikes.
That's some Yankee queers.

Check the flag on that bike.

Dennis says,
�Those guys, we want them."

I said, �I want those guys,"
and he goes:

�You've gotta be kidding.
I can't ask those guys, they'll kill me."

And I said, �Those are the guys
I want for the movie.�

I said,
�You see those girls over there?"

Hot damn!

I'll tell you.

"We're gonna get in so much trouble,
we'll never leave this town."

Everybody wants to be
in the movies.

So they did.
They wanted to be in the movies.

Don't look too close because
the sheriff's right over there.

I told them there's nothing you can say
that's too bad about us.

Feel free to say anything you want
about us...

...because we raped and killed
a young girl outside of town.

They go, �Oh."

So that freed them up
to use all their bigotry...

...and all their stuff
and all their nastiness...

...which they wanted to use anyway.

Look like a bunch of refugees
from a gorilla love-in.

- A gorilla couldn't love that.
- Nor could a mother.

And especially hit pay din
with Hayward Robillard, Jr...

...the man in the Cat hat.

We ought to put them in a cage
and charge admission to see them.

They did not really like us.

And conversely, the girls did like us.

Please let us have a ride.

I don't mind giving you a ride.

They resented the fact
that the girls did like us.

The man is at the window
The man is at the window

The man is at the window

When I saw the faces...

...they loved it, they loved to hate,
you know?

And it was kind of scary,
you know, because--

But, you know, at the same time,
what really toned down...

...the real hatred got in the movie.

What do you think
we ought to do with them?

I don't know, but I don't think
they'll make the parish line.

You know...

...I'm not real hungry at the moment.

I hate to say it, but I do believe...

...that they would have enjoyed if Jack
was real in the killing scene later on.

For years I was criticized:

�Why didn't you use a black guy
on the back of the bike?"

You know, well--

Why?
Because it would be too obvious...

...that there would be a reason
for them to kill us at that time...

...because of the racial implications
of going into the South.

But in point of fact,
we didn't need to be different.

We didn't need to be black-
We just needed to have long hair.

- Check that joker with the long hair.
- I checked him.

We might have to bring him
to the Hilton before it's over.

I think she's cute.

I wanted them to kill
one of their own.

I wanted America to kill their own son
when they kill Jack Nicholson.

And the worst thing he's done
is get drunk...

...and work for the ACLU...

...which everybody wanted me
to take out of the picture.

Which I thought was really ludicrous
at the time, but anyway...

...that's how uptight everyone was.

They didn't object to anything else
but that ACLU line.

You know,
�Can't we do something about that?"

Jack distils it all.

He's our mouthpiece. He explains it.

Dennis is,
"All they're worried about is our hair."

�Oh, yeah,
they don't like the hair...

...but don't go tell them
they ain't free.�

And this is what we were seeing
in the movie.

We're not free.

All we represent to them, man,
is somebody who needs a haircut.

Oh, no.

What you represent to them...

...is freedom.

They're gonna talk to you
and talk to you...

...about individual freedom.

But they see a free individual,
it's gonna scare them.

Well, it don't make them
running scared.

No. It makes them dangerous.

It was tough. But Jack had to die.

He was the one person
everybody identified with the most.

He was the drunk.

If anybody had trouble
getting with any of our characters...

...at that point,
because we were potheads.

With Jack's character, as a drunk,
they can get into the scene.

And they're more comfortable
with him.

Why did they kill Jack
and not them?

He was worse than these two guys.

He was a renegade,
a turncoat, a traitor.

Those people aren't stupid.
You know, those redneck killers.

They knew that if he was found dead
with his skull crushed...

...had been seen
with these two guys...

_..and those two guys
had left the scene...

...probably the idea would be
that those guys did it.

When he goes, you're forced to go
with either me or Billy.

This is a knife-throwing
LA. speed freak...

...versus this very enigmatic,
cool-looking dude, you know?

They're gonna go with me.

The interior of the whorehouse.

I found a place
in the Hollywood Hills there...

._.in an old house of a movie star,
an old silent-picture star.

And these things were written
in the library.

It's only determined
when a man dies...

...what his reputation
whether he was good or bad.

And that's when I put in the flash.

And seeing the ending of the
helicopter shot with fire on the end.

That was an editing thought.

They wanted me to play this whore.

And they wanted me to improvise
a scene with Dennis...

...who was brilliant.

- What are these things?
- What are these things, huh?

I'm kind of a freak myself.

We had a tremendous argument
about going to the whorehouse...

...which was not part of my program.
I said:

�No, man, you know, Captain America
doesn't have to do that.

He doesn't have to pay for it."

And Dennis said,
�Okay, okay, man, here's what it is.

That's your job in the scene
in the whorehouse.

You gotta get us out on the street."

I've got an idea.

Let's go outside.

Dennis had found this graveyard
which I found to be rather bizarre.

But it worked for me.

Everybody's buried above ground
in New Orleans.

Because you dig three feet down,
you're in the water.

And we go up the side of the crypt
and we take the acid.

When Peter breaks up the acid
and gives it to us.

And I say my sensitive line,
�Oh, shut up, just take it."

What do you do with it?

Give it to me.

Just shut up and take it.

And in the middle of it, I realize,
as we're doing this:

Oh, my God, it's a communion.

We were gonna go to the cemetery
and shoot the next day.

I said, "You know, I don't know
if I can sleep tonight.

And we're getting really up early.�

So Peter said, "Take this.
Take this and you'll sleep.�

What is it?
He says, �A sleeping pill.�

Yeah? "Something like that.�

So I take it and I sort of feel
like I'm lying there...

...trying to go to sleep.

And Toni is next to me
in the other bed.

And she's listening to me and-

I'm going

�Toni, I know this sounds
really strange...

...but I feel like I can't get
in my body.

I feel like I can feel the outside
of my skin.

It feels really cool and cold and--

And I can't go to sleep
because I'm out.

I can't get in."

So she wakes up in the morning,
she says:

�Karen said the most wonderful things
last night.

Why doesn't she say them
in the movie?"

I can feel the outside
but I can't-

I can't feel the inside.

Oh, dear God, please let it be!

I'm right out here.

He shall come to judge
the living and the dead.

I believe--

So guess who's writing this.
Karen.

I've got this wacky typewriter
in this Winnebago...

...and Terry Southern
is sitting across from me going:

"I really love underpants.

Do you think
that we could have a scene...

...where you take your underpants off
and stuff them in a rock?"

Please help me to conceive a child.

I found this guy
who's a Shakespearean actor...

...who was walking
through the streets of New Orleans...

...spouting Shakespeare.

He's sort of the symbol
of Jean Cocteau...

...the man with the umbrella,
the death figure, a surrealist image.

And also I thought
of Peter's father being the actor.

Peter wanting to know
who his father was.

The whole sequence
was not scripted.

Dennis saw this statue.

It was an Italian Statue of Liberty
with me sitting on her lap...

...asking my mother
why she'd copped out on me.

Because my mother committed suicide
when I was 10.

I said,
�Dennis, you can't ask me to do that.

Just because you know...

...doesn't give you the right to go
public with it, especially in a film.

I don't feel comfortable doing it."

�No, no, man. You've got to, man.
I mean, man, man.

You, man, you got to, man.
You know, man. I mean it's--"

�Dennis, I don't wanna do it.

I don't wanna go out there
and say that.

I don't wanna be that public with it."

�But, man, you got to.�

And we're arguing
and arguing and--

�Give me one good reason, man."
You know, he said:

�Because I'm the director.�

I couldn't argue with that.

So I got up on the statue...

...and I went for something
I'd never done in my life.

Why did you leave like that?

And you're such a cruel mother
and I hate you so much.

That to me was talking
to the Statue of Liberty and saying:

�Are you just a piece of paper?
Is liberty just a piece of paper?"

I thought of those things
as being symbolic...

...of what was happening
in the country.

Barry, who was filming it,
could see it through the lens.

And I don't know why Dennis wanted
to move the camera.

But Dennis wanted
to move the camera.

Barry wanted to let it roll.

I could hear the argument.

And finally, I go, "Shut up."

It's in the film.

Shut up.

I was really into it.

And I was-- It was--

Forget about making movies.

I was into this thing
about asking my mother this question.

Forgiveness of sins...

...the resurrection of the body.

I wanted it taken out
of the film from the get-go.

So it's in there.

And history has its own way
of working these things well.

And it actually played well for me
when I tried to convince Dylan...

...to give me the first part
of �It's Alright, Ma"

He had all these reasons
why not to do it.

"I don't like my harmonica.
I don't like this, I don't like--"

I said, "Look it, Bobby,
you might not like your harmonica.

I'm the producer of the film.

It's truly my call to say, 'That's out.'

But I'm overridden by everybody else
who's involved with this...

...saying it's in. And that's the part
where I say to my mother:

'Why did you cop out on
me?'

I don't like that.

It embarrasses me
every time I see it, Bobby.

Makes me very, very upset.

But because it's there...

...and because I was convinced
to do it at the moment...

...and then convinced
to leave it in the film...

...I have to hear:

Suicide remarks are torn

From the fool's gold mouthpiece

The hollow horn
plays wasted words

My mother cut her throat from here
to here, and you have to sing about it.

I wanna hear those lines."

It blew his mind. He had no idea.

No, actually, I didn't do it
to blew his mind.

I was serious.
I was passionate about it.

And he had no way to argue that.

We went to shoot the last campfire.

The motorcycles had been stolen.

This is why it's the campfire
you don't see the motorcycles in.

We'd shot the whole movie.

And I said,
�There's one more scene to shoot."

He says, �No, we've shot them.
We've completed the movie."

I get him out in the night.
I said, "We're shooting.�

He said,
"I'm not saying all that crap.�

Dennis started to ask,
�What do you wanna say, man?"

�Well, you know,
I just wanna say we blew it."

�Yeah, that's good.
We have to say we blew it.

When we went for the big money,
man, you know?

We'll say we blew it--"

�No, I just wanna say we blew it.�

And this boiled into an argument,
and, you know-

Basically, with Dennis,
it's high level, high decibel.

I said,
�Well, then, don't worry about it.�

You just say, �We blew it."
and I'll say the rest.

He said, "How are you gonna do that?"
I said, �Don't worry about it."

We've done it. We've done it.

We're rich, Wyatt.

Yeah, man.

We blew it.

I said, �We'll shoot it two ways.

First, we'll shoot it your way,
then my way."

So we stepped out
of the home and I said:

�Let's give each other a hug...

...and they'll just think
we're nutty actors...

...having screamed their selves
into method acting the scene out."

Dennis threw his arms around me.
"I love you man."

I said, �I love you, man."
We went down and shot the scene.

I didn't say anything
other than "We blew it."

We did it, man! We did it.

We did it.

We're rich, man.

We're retired in Florida now, mister.

The whole idea of retirement
absolutely is abhorrent to me.

You know, we blew it.

The idea that people think
we can retire.

We have so damn much work
to do here.

I hear people say, "I'm gonna retire."
And I wanna say "Fuck you."

I wanna get right in their face
right away.

How can you do that?

When you see that tube going
into the gas tank...

...and I'm stuffing money into it,
what's the symbol for you on that?

Fucking the flag with money.
Retirement.

Well, that's what it's all about.
Like, you know.

You go for the big money,
and then you're free.

You dig?

We blew it.

Dennis has always felt
that I should have said more.

I wanted to be enigmatic about it.

And I still today
wanna be enigmatic about it.

This is had happened when I said,
�We blew it,� without explanation.

Everybody in theatres said,
�What does he mean?"

Well, the whole point is we don't let
anybody out of this picture that way.

You can't put it under the seat
in the means.

You have to truck it home with you
and figure it out.

What did we do?
Why did we see that?

What happened?

We were with these guys,
they were so cool.

And they're gone.

You blew whatever chance you had
to become something good...

...something inspiring,
something different.

Dennis and I were at a gas station...

...and found this gentleman
with a goitre on his neck.

Dennis said, "Get me him."

So I said, "Those are the two guys
that I want to do the killing.�

He said, "But we need somebody
with a pickup truck.

Do you have a pickup truck?"

He said, "No, but my friend does.�

And he points out his friend
from the back.

And I said, �Yeah, right, get him."

So Dennis-- We got them both,
put them in the car.

And Dennis told them
what he wanted to do, basically...

...gave them roughly
what they were supposed to say...

...and let them go.

You want me
to blow your brains out?

People would take their cars...

...and come right at the bikes.

And the bikes would have
to go off the road sometimes...

...when we're shooting.
You know, and-

And then they would scream
and say:

�We're gonna get our guns, we're
gonna come back and shoot you.�

Why don't you get a haircut?

Dennis wanted to extend
the moment of the shotgun.

The pickup truck went down
on the road and started turning back.

And suddenly we went
into slow motion.

And that was very, very effective,
very scary...

...because you knew-
You knew that they're gonna get him.

And they were firing
right into the lens.

I got a couple of, kind of a little
gunpowder on my forehead.

It could have been dangerous...

...because in order to enhance
the gunfire...

...somebody would stuff napkin
into the shell...

...so it gets more force.

We did things
like you're not supposed to do...

...but we didn't know
because we were ignorant.

We didn't have a special effect.

We didn't have a gun specialist
with us, you know?

And, you know, so we had
to just deal with it.

We wanted to do
that helicopter shot.

We had no helicopter mounts.
We wanted it to be steady.

Again Kov�cs was very nervous.

�Around the car, you know?

Then when the car moves,
it's gonna be shaking all over.�

We weren't able
to get a strong helicopter.

That was overlapped
with Bobby Kennedy's assassination.

And they wouldn't release it
until the whole, you know, was over.

And there was this small helicopter.

And this tiny mount wouldn't even fit
in a doorway where it should be.

It fits in a larger helicopter.

So the key grip came up
with the idea...

...he's gonna build the car mount
on the skids...

...and put 2-by-12 planks across...

...and put the helicopter mount
on one side of the helicopter...

...and he counterbalanced
with sandbags on the other side.

There was standing the pilot.

And he was kind of looking at it
and shaking his head.

He's like, "It won't fly.

This helicopter has smaller engine
than your Mustang."

Well, that didn't feel very good
for me.

You know,
because I had to ride this.

My key grip just insisted,
�No, it's gonna work."

So he revs the engine up.

And I feel- And the cabin is going up
but the skids are not moving.

The pilot says, "That won't work
because we are overweight.

I'd rather deal
with taking off the sandbags...

...and I'll deal with the off-balance.�

And that made me nervous
because I'm on one side.

And if it don't balance,
the chopper could tip over.

I said, �I'm gonna start
going straight down on that road.

And when I get over the wreck-

I mean, the explosion.

--Hopefully, I gonna have a wind."

I combine into it and going up.

Like sort of a 45. And then--

First of all, I didn't wanna go 45.

I had-- I said a steeper angle.

It would be more dramatic.

He says, �I'll be lucky
if I can go, like, 30 degree...

...maybe 45
if I have a good headwind."

So, okay, let's try it.
So we go back and we start going.

And out there there's no wind.
So we just kept going forward.

We tried two, three times.

And I think the fourth time,
he starts yelling in the intercom.

He says, "I'm getting a wind.
I'm getting a wind."

You know, he says, "Okay, great.�

And he puts me in the right altitude
over the bike.

And he just gets above it
and starts pulling up, up.

And I'm opening the lens
getting wider and wider.

And he just keeps going
on a wonderful steep angle.

The little flame--
And the flame is almost invisible now.

And on the left side of the frame...

...I see the bank of the river
and I start lifting the camera...

...and leaving the scene
of the wreck.

And I keep yelling, "Keep going up,
higher, higher, higher.�

And I hear the chopper
just going like crazy.

I still get the goose bumps,
you know?

Because I remember every time...

.-.l see the ending of this movie,
I remember this.

How-- How exciting, how difficult
and how tough was it to make it.

You know, but we made it.

Bobby Dylan said, �What does
the end of the movie mean to you?"

I wasn't ready for that question.

I said, "Well, you know, you see
there's the road that man builds.

We can see that.

And then there's the river,
and that's the road that God builds.

So you can see what happens
on the road that man builds."

So he just picked up a pad.

That river flows, flows to the sea

Wherever that river goes
That's where I wanna be

Flow river, flow
Pass the green shady tree

Flow river, flow to the sea

I spent a year editing the film.

Movies had fallen into a pattern
of doing everything a certain way.

And so the whole idea
of using quick cuts and all that...

...was totally foreign
to feature films at that time.

I really wanted to win
the Cannes Film Festival, you know?

And I had enough knowledge...

...to know that superimposures
were, like, frowned on...

...in the European art market.

People said,
�Well, that was because...

...they couldn't afford the money
that it took to superimpose."

But I-- That may be partly it.

But I think that superimposure
is really cheating, you know?

I mean, I think that if you can direct cut
something, it's much cleaner.

Dennis had cut together
the picture...

...in a very long version.

And we'd seen
this long version endlessly.

And it was too long
to ever think about releasing.

Dennis wanted to road show
the movie...

...which is when you have the
intermission, you know...

...ticketed, assigned seat
and all that.

And I kept saying, "Columbia
isn't gonna do that, Dennis.

There's just not a chance in the world
they're gonna road show this movie."

So at some point...

...the picture was taken away,
if you will, from Dennis.

We had to take the film
and re-edit it...

...from three hours down
to a reasonable length film.

Jack edited his part of the scene.

Hayward edited. I edited.

Bert edited. Bob edited.

And the scene that everybody tried--

Everybody that asked
what we were doing tried to edit was--

The restaurant scene in--

Wherever that horrible place was
in Louisiana.

Everybody would look at that
and say:

�God, I know how to cut that, that's--
Let me try it."

And they would
and nobody could get it right.

My scene was 20 minutes longer
than the one that's in the movie.

I fell in love with the scene...

...because there was so much
really incredible material in that...

...that they were saying.

I just-- I kept playing it
and I wouldn't get off of it.

I couldn't let it go.

When I came back
and saw the scene, I said:

�You made a television movie
out of it.

You made a television--
This is just television."

You know. But it's fine, it's good.

We cut it down from over three hours
to 90 minutes.

And we had a screening for Dennis
at Columbia in the big theatre.

And I thought, �He's gonna go so nuts
when he sees what we've done.�

You know, he was my brother-in-law
and I liked him.

But he had a temper and I knew this
was cutting to his creative soul and--

And the lights came on, and I was
prepared for anything to be--

You know, to be--
Anything from being shot to-

You know, it was like- And he was--
There was tears in his eyes.

And he said, "That's beautiful."

He said, "That's amazing. Don't ever,
ever let me cut another foot of film."

This was the first time
a score hadn't been written...

...and I actually used found music.

And I used music
that I heard on the radio.

This was the music
that best reflected the movie.

And also it gave
a literary comment...

...upon what was happening
when we were doing the rides.

It was his record collection
and some of mine.

That was what it was.

Crosby, Stills and Nash
were supposed to be the ones...

...to write the real score
for the movie.

When they came and saw it...

...I said, "You can hear it with
the sound on, the music on or off.�

They said,
�Let's hear it with the music on."

And Stills had a six-string guitar
with him.

He never touched the guitar.
They just all were...

...that the movie jaws to the jersey.

And basically said at the end:

�We can't beat that.

We can't--
We can't even get near that.

We're lost."

The wonderful thing about seeing
the movie when it was in the theatre...

...when it first came out
was the reaction that people had.

And the different reactions--

Because people
had different reactions...

...depending upon where you are.

If you're in New Orleans...

...they applaud the guys
that shoot you at the end.

Applaud, okay?

And if you're in Los Angeles,
they get up screaming, "Kill the pigs."

Shake the fucking cage.

That's what I thought the night I--
This is gonna surely shake the cage.

And now it's part
of the National Registry.

It's gonna shake the cage.

If you wanna go back and study
about this part of our culture...

...one of the things that the
government-- Isn't that far out?

The government offers you
is the availability of Easy Rider.

It was a metaphor for what happened
after the '60s.

It became that kind of tag end...

...hungover sadness...

...that happens right after
a great age.

I screened it for my father...

...who's a very mainstream
creative producer, mostly Broadway.

And he knew instantly
that it was gonna be a huge hit.

Instantly.

He was terribly pleased because
his son had finally done something...

...that he could tell his pals about.

And we had a screening
for Peter's father, Henry.

And he knew immediately.

He was very proud of the picture.

I was ashamed of Easy Rider.

I was terribly ashamed I'd done it.

When I would make my r�sum�,
I always left it out.

So that when it came out
and was a huge hit...

...I had a bit of transition,
you know, to make.

I thought,
�Well, gee, this is a great movie.

How'd that happen?"

It was
the first real independent movie...

...that was ever distributed
by a major company.

And it changed the way we looked
at things.

Changed filmmaking.
It'll never be the same again.

I came from a very small little village
in Hungary.

I came back to visit
and my mother said:

�There's this young man
who is a hairdresser in a village.

And he really wants
to shake your hand."

She said,
�Please, don't deny it from him."

I said, "Okay, no problem.
Come on, let him come in."

So this man comes over to our house
and he looks at me, he says:

�Let me hold your hand."

He said,
�This movie changed my life.

I saw it 34 times."

I said, �What was it?
What was it changed?�

He says, �Everything. Everything.�

He says,
"I see the world differently now."

An easy rider is a person that liv-

Is not a pimp,
but he lives off a woman.

He lives off of a whore.

He's an easy-- He's her easy rider.

She-- He's the one that she loves
and she gives money to.

He doesn't pimp her,
but he's her easy rider.

Dennis was in Cool Hand Luke.

He played Babalugats.

I don't know what that was about.

But he was one of the prisoners.

And Dennis latched onto me
very quickly...

...curious.

Because I had long, long hair.

Nobody in Hollywood had long hair
at that time.

And I wouldn't cut it.

They put it in a French twist
and put it up under the hat, right?

And Dennis started hanging out
with me.

We went places.
I had a car that I'd rented.

And we'd go here, go there.

And he started telling me
about this idea he had...

...for a movie about two guys
on bikes.

And I said, �Sounds
like Captain America and Bucky.�

He said, "What's that?
Tell me about that."

�Well, Captain America and Bucky
were old 19405 comic-strip heroes."

The ultimate thing
with the bikers was...

...when we finished the picture
and brought the bikes back...

...I told Tex Hall,
who was the head guy...

...who was handling the bikes
and put them together...

...finally made them work,
to keep the bikes at his house.

And somehow-

This is before they were known
or popular or anything else.

The bikes themselves,
even before the picture came out.

Somehow, somebody knew...

...they were used in the film
and they were lead bikes.

They came into Tex's house
with shotguns...

_..and put shotguns to his head.

He was with his girlfriend in bed...

...and they put shotguns to his head
and they took the bikes.

He called me that night. He said,
�They came and took the bikes.�

He said, "I know who did it.
I wanna go get them back."

He went out and shot somebody.

He didn't kill them.
He went out and shot somebody.

And ended up going to jail.

But by the time he got to them...

...which was maybe
a couple of hours later...

...the bikes had been dismantled
and everything was gone.

We didn't smoke, you know...

...because we figured somebody has
to make this movie, you know?

Because we are already
having too much fun, you know?

If we had more fun, we were just
gonna sit, don't do any work anymore.

Everybody was taking my credit cards
and running.

We paid for all the hotels, the food,
the gas, everything with Diner's Club.

I was going everywhere...

...signing Peter Fonda's name
on the credit card.

And sometimes I'd sign my name on it,
sometimes I'd sign his name on it.

They'd look at me and say,
�Are you Peter Fonda?�

And I'd say, "Sure."

I came up to Diner's Club
and I said:

�You ought to have me just say:

�The things you couldn't get
with Master Charge...

...I made Easy Rider
on Diner's Club."

But it didn't fit the corporate image
too well.

It's funny to me now when I hear...

...how preempted the old language
of hip has become.

When I see guys
in three-piece suits saying:

"I'm out of here."

�Dig this."

�Look at that chick.�

�Man, I'm gonna crash.�

�Could I crash at your pad, man?"

You know, it just--

It gets sucked up so fast.

They love the accoutrement of it.

The hipness.
But they don't like the thing itself.

What it really requires
is a very strong desire...

...that drives you through...

...the fears and the pain
and the lack in life...

...that you're gonna quite naturally
go through...

...if you wanna get something
creative done.