Easy Rider (1969) [Criterion Collection #545 - AMERICA LOST and Found: THE BBS STORY]

Two counterculture bikers travel from Los Angeles to New Orleans in search of America.

Director: Dennis Hopper
Cast: Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Antonio Mendoza, Phil Spector, Mac Mashourian, Warren Finnerty, Tita Colorado, Luke Askew, Luana Anders, Sabrina Scharf, Sandy Brown Wyeth, Robert Walker Jr., Robert Ball, Carmen Phillips, Ellie Wood Walker, Caleb Goodman, Jack Nicholson, George Fowler Jr., Keith Green, Hayward Robillard, Arnold Hess Jr., Buddy Causey Jr., Duffy Lafont, Blase M. Dawson, Paul Guedry Jr., Suzie Ramagos, Elida Ann Hebert, Rose LeBlanc, Mary Kaye Hebert, Cynthia Grezaffi



Disc 1 - Feature and Commentaries
Disc 2 - Supplements




IMDb

Wyatt and Billy are two motorcycle riders (bikers) on their way to Mardis Gras, and encounter hitchhikers, a drunken lawyer, a jail cell, a whorehouse and the death of a friend.
~ Aaron Horne

The Criterion Collection

As Billy and “Captain America,” Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda motored down the highway on their Harley Davidsons to the roaring strains of Steppenwolf’s “Born to Be Wild,” the definitive counterculture blockbuster was born. Former clean-cut teen star Hopper’s down-and-dirty directorial debut, Easy Rider heralded the arrival of a new voice in film, one pitched angrily against the mainstream. After Easy Rider’s cross-country journey—with its radical, New Wave–style editing, outsider-rock soundtrack, revelatory performance by a young Jack Nicholson, and explosive ending—the American road trip would never be the same.

Disc Features
- New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised by director of photography Laszlo Kovacs, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack and optional DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
- Two audio commentaries, one featuring actor-director-writer Dennis Hopper, the other Hopper, actor-writer Peter Fonda, and production manager Paul Lewis
- Born to Be Wild (1995) and “Easy Rider”: Shaking the Cage, (1999), documentaries about the making and history of the film
- Television excerpts showing Hopper and Fonda at the Cannes Film Festival
- New video interview with BBS cofounder Steve Blauner
- Theatrical trailers




DVDTalk

Every now and again a film comes out that encapsulates the contemporary cultural atmosphere and becomes an instant classic. Easy Rider is just such a film. In 1969 when this movie was produced America was in the throws of social unrest over the civil rights movement and protests against the Vietnam War. The high ideals of the Hippie movement were beginning to crumble and this nation was struggling to regain its identity. Easy Rider, without directly addressing those specific issues, was able to capture that mood on screen and stood as a bookend to the 60s generation; a kind of counterpoint to Jack Kerouac's seminal novel On the Road.

Easy Rider tells the story of two drug smuggling motorcyclists that ply their way across the country in search of their own personal redemption and find along the way a series of archetypal characters including redneck racists, burnt out idealists and disenfranchised individualists. The film's message and conclusion are open ended and thought provoking making this a story that can be visited over and over again with ever changing reactions.