Why Did Captain America Say, "We blew it!" to Billy? ["Easy Rider" movie]

In Easy Rider. Your theories?

 

This was the question our prof used for our final exam in one of my cinema classes back in University. Good one!

 

Awesome! What was your answer?

 

Money can't buy happiness

 

And what grade did you get on the final? Are you paraphrasing, or was that your complete answer?

 

They should have stayed at the hippy commune.

 

Lots of ways to interpret: they didn’t make the cash they planned, their trip turned into a tragedy they didn’t expect, nothing went down as planned.

EASY RIDER was lightning in a bottle. It blew open the independent film scene in the States for a brief period and all the major studios were throwing money at maverick filmmakers to try and recreate its success.

 

To me, that line succinctly sums up the sense of disillusionment with the whole hippy dream of the 60s, the lost idealism. Maybe it was doomed from the beginning.

 

Acknowledging they made a lame ass movie?

....... I agree with Tristero about the lost idealism of the 60s: soon to be exemplified by coke, disco, and a booming philosophy of getting one's fair share. The hippies grew up and decided they had to make themselves a living.

 

I have always taken it to mean they didn't "find their place in their time".

 

A movie that cost $400,000 and made over $60 million (1/3 of which went to co-star/co-producer/co-writer Peter Fonda) ain't that lame. The success of Easy Rider caused massive changes in Hollywood -- I would say it was an extremely important film for its time, whether or not you like it. (I'm not a fan of the film, either, but I wouldn't say it's a bad film at all.)

 

According to Dennis Hopper:

"He's talking about easy money, that we should have used our energies to make it".

 

Precisely

 

I think the comment was more aimed at America in general. What a depressing, pointless movie.

 

Complete answer. I got an A. My prof was an American who moved to Canada to teach in the early 1970's. His perspective on the USA really opened my mind.

 

They looked for America in the wrong places

 

A prophetic voice seemed to resonate from that movie.........the 60's were coming to an end and the "renaissance" that was supposed to bring about change in the US didn't necessarily happen. You bet the ending was bleak and nihilistic......and so was the future.

 

The "renaissance" kinda happened and then fizzled out although vestiges remain.
The reaction to the "renaissance" still haunts us and may be stronger than ever.

 

RIP Peter Fonda.
A trailblazer who helped change Hollywood for the better.

 

Ever see Love and a .45? He's great in that.

 

Why Did Captain America Say, "We blew it!" to Billy? ["Easy Rider" movie]

It was a symbolic statement, echoing the mood of the time in regards to that generation of Americans who embraced the counterculture movement & how they realized, at the end of the tumultuous 1960's, that they had indeed "blown it" & failed to overthrow the warmongering establishment for good but instead squandered the best chance they had at making real lasting radical changes & willingly descended into a pathetic swirl of drug induced hedonism & intellectual self-indulgence.
Or at least that's how I interpreted that line in the movie.

 

No I’ll have to check it out!
The Hired Hand is fantastic too.

 

Here's an entire essay that attempts to answer that question:

"Tell Me We Haven't Blown It": Peter Fonda Reflects on 'Easy Rider' and Its Unanswered Question

BTW, I worked on the Disney film Wild Hogs for three months in 2007, and we had Peter Fonda in a large cameo role at the very end of the film. I thought he was spaced-out and out of it, but the biker extras we had were just about speechless and showed him the greatest of respect. They were able to save Fonda's performance through great editing and re-recording all his lines with ADR, and I'm glad they did because he was integral to our film's ending. But it was clear to me he was not all there. Maybe he was having a bad day. He did do his own riding, so that he could do just fine.

I thought it was interesting in the 1970s that Peter Fonda and his legendary father, Henry Fonda, reportedly did not get along because Peter had wound up making about $20 million on Easy Rider... which was more than his father had made in his entire career. I was struck by that.

 

THE HIRED HAND is a beautiful film. Fonda definitely knew what he was doing getting Vilmos Zsigmond as DP and Frank Mazzola to edit.
It always blows my mind that Vilmos and Laszlo Kovacs, best friends, came to the U.S. and had a profound effect on cinematography.

Fonda was also great in ULEE’S GOLD and THE LIMEY. I wondered why he didn’t take more acting roles in the last 25 years or so, but I think you had some insight into it Marc.

 

You nailed it.

I think part of it, too, is that the hippy culture (and most of the Boomer Generation in general--not all but *most*) wanted things a bit too easy and 'fun'--a complete 180 from their parents generation, and in the end real life ain't always fun.

A line from Micky Dolenz's SHORTY BLACKWELL works as a good paraphrase: "Now you've finally gotten everything you wanted and you're taunted by the power that you really don't want anymore."

Or to quote from HEAD:. "The tragedy of YOUR times, young friends, is that you may get exactly what you want!"