“Five Easy Pieces: The Criterion Collection” shines on 4K UHD
- Peggy Earle
- 10 hours ago
- 7 min read
4K ULTRA HD REVIEW / HDR SCREENSHOTS
Jack Nicholson’s first dramatic starring role, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award as Bobby Dupea. The California oil rig worker returns home to see his father, who suffered a stroke.
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“FIVE EASY PIECES: THE CRITERION COLLECTION”
4K Ultra HD & Blu-ray; 1970; R for nudity, profanity, smoking, mild violence
Best extra: Commentary by director/co-writer Bob Rafelson and production designer Toby Rafelson
IN WHAT WAS Jack Nicholson’s first dramatic star turn, he plays Bobby Dupea, a California oil rig worker who seems content to labor in the oil fields by day, and live with a needy waitress and country singer wannabe Rayette (Karen Black), while spending his evenings with fellow worker Elton and his wife Stoney (Billy Green Bush and Fannie Flagg).
Bobby’s simple life is upended, however, after he puts on a suit and visits his pianist sister Partita (Lois Smith), at a sound studio where she’s recording an album. She tells Bobby their father has suffered a stroke and encourages him to visit the family home. After reluctantly letting Rayette tag along as far as a cheap motel, Bobby takes a ferry to an island, where viewers get to see where he came from. At the stately, isolated house live Bobby’s brother Carl (Ralph Waite), his student/girlfriend Catherine (Susan Anspach), his stricken, mute father Nicholas (William Challee), and his father’s physical therapist, Spicer (John P. Ryan).
And it’s there, at the house where he grew up, that Bobby comes face to face with the contradictions in his life, both attracted to and repelled by his artsy family. “Five Easy Pieces,” while slightly dated, still delivers a powerful message, thanks to great writing and top-notch performances. It’s an absolute must for Nicholson fans, but has plenty to offer for any film buff or music lover, for that matter.
(1&2) The first act of “Five Easy Pieces” was filmed in the oilfields near Bakersfield, Calif. The low-budget film premiered at the New York Film Festival on September 11, 1970. (3) Karen Black received an Oscar nomination for her role as needy waitress and wannabe country singer Rayette. (4) At the local bowling alley, Bobby flirts with Betty (Sally Struthers) and Twinky (Marlena MacGuire). (5&6) After a long day on the oil rig, Bobby gets out of the car during a traffic jam and barks with a dog. He and his best friend Elton take a lunch break. (7) Rayette is upset with Bobby. (8) He drives to Los Angeles to meet his pianist sister Partita (Lois Smith).
VIDEO
The folks at Sony Pictures, with an assist from Cineric Inc. based in NYC, and MPI in Burbank, handled the 4K restoration, including scanning the original 35mm camera negative and the second-generation YCM separation masters. Natural gritty film grain dances across the screen, with excellent clarity, but a slight reduction with frames using the second-generation master. The striking wide-angle imagery was shot by Hungarian cinematographer László Kovács (“Easy Rider,” “Ghostbusters”), near Bakersfield, Calif., at a Denny’s Restaurant in Eugene, Oregon, and in British Columbia.
The expanded contrast and color levels from the HDR10 and Dolby Vision grading are evident throughout, compared to the older Criterion Blu-ray version.
AUDIO
The original 1.0 DTS-HD Mono soundtrack was restored, removing excess tape hiss, pops, and noise to provide a clean upfront dialogue track along. The soundtrack features Tammy Wynette’s country classics “Stand by Your Man” and “D-I-V-O-R-C-E,” and classical piano from Pearl Kaufman subbing for Dupea, with Chopin, Bach, and Mozart.
Roadside Diner
(1) During a road trip heading north, Bobby and Rayette pick up Palm (Helen Kallianiotes) and Terry (Toni Basil), whose car has broken down. (2-4) The foursome end up at a local diner and order breakfast. Bobby has trouble with the waitress (Lorna Thayer) when he asks to “Hold the Chicken.”
EXTRAS
The Criterion Collection two-disc set comes with plenty of meaty extras, all recorded for previous releases, but all worth a watch or a listen.
“Soul Searching in ‘Five Easy Pieces’’ (9 mins.) with writer/producer/director Bob Rafelson and Nicholson. It opens up with a quote from Chicago film critic Roger Ebert, who says “‘Five Easy Pieces’ was a fusion of the personal cinema of John Cassavetes and the new indie movement that was tentatively emerging.” Rafelson tells of his nervousness during the first day of filming and how a moth kept terrorizing the first setup, flying from light to light. Nicholson recalls his real-life argument with a waitress at a Sunset Boulevard coffee shop, where he cleared the table with his arm. Obviously, an inspiration for the classic scene in “Easy Pieces.”
“BBStory: An American Film Renaissance,” (46 mins.) – the documentary highlights the birth of the BBS production company, founded by Bob Rafelson, Bert Schneider and Steve Blauner (their first name initials created BBS), which was clearly a movement against the old Hollywood. Joining the conversation are filmmakers Peter Bogdanovich, Fred Roos, film critic Richard Schickel, actors Nicholson, Black and Ellen Burstyn, Micky Dolenz of The Monkees and others.
“BBS: A Time for Change” (27 mins.) Film critic David Thomson and historian Douglas Brinkley detail how BBS developed films toward the “tambourines” of the youth culture during the ‘60s and early ‘70s.
Audio excerpts from Bob Rafelson’s 1976 interview at the American Film Institute (50 mins.) – with varying levels of sound quality as the microphone seems too far away from Rafelson at the beginning, and making it difficult to understand the questions from the audience. One single photograph of Rafelson holds the screen the whole way.
Illustrated booklet – essay by critic Kent Jones.
The commentary with the writer/producer/director and his ex-wife, Toby Rafelson – who at the time was the film’s production director. She “contributed to everything on the film” … is “brilliant” …and is “still my best friend,” he says. During the opening credits, Bob notes that there are two editors, because the first and second half of the film were edited separately. And he highly praises the various Tammy Wynette songs featured throughout and how surprised he was that they were able to get permission to use them.
Discussing the cast, Bob says he collaborated with Nicholson seven or eight times. Plus adding details of the other cast members, including Fannie Flagg, which was her first role and became a comedian, author, and a frequent guest on the TV game show “Match Game.” Sally Struthers went on to fame with the highly rated CBS sitcom “All in the Family,” and Sam Peckinpah’s crime thriller “The Getaway” (1972).
The director says William Challee, who played the stricken father, was chosen for his looks. At the time, the actor was running an art gallery, and had been an actor before that. Ralph Waite later became the father on CBS’s “The Waltons.” Lois Smith was in three or four of Bob’s films – “She was like a talisman.”
Bob celebrates the freedom that BBS enjoyed, and while the budget was low and the average paycheck small, everyone who worked on it received a percentage of the profits. Another feature of the low budget was that it limited the production, often resulting in many “happy accidents.” Nicholson had to do some training in the oil fields to prepare for his role, and also studied the piano, even though most of the time his playing was dubbed later. A lot of improv took place in the film, such as during the poker game scene, and the bedroom scene where Struthers tells a childhood story.
Toby relates how her advice on decorating one of the sets led to her being named production designer: “Bob’s faith in my ability helped my career.” She later worked with Jonathan Demme (“Melvin and Howard”) and Martin Scorsese ("Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore”), among others. She discusses Nicholson’s early career and his small, but memorable role in “Easy Rider,” which preceded “Five Easy Pieces.” “The rest,” she says, “Is history.”
She recalls taking the actors shopping for their wardrobes, and that she also encouraged them to wear some of their own clothes. When it came to set decorating, she explains that her biggest challenge was “making something seem ordinary,” such as in the house where Rayette lives, and resisting the temptation to put in too much, or make it too neat. Toby talks about the house on Vancouver Island that belonged to a Canadian couple, and was completely empty: “I got to create an entire family’s life.” She placed photos of the actors from their childhood around the house and says she even put stuff in the drawers in their bedrooms, as a support to the characters that they might discover during shooting.
Talking about the famous restaurant scene when Bobby argues with the waitress, and which, says Bob, “is excerpted so often,” the restaurant threatened to sue afterwards, so they had to remove its outdoor sign.
Toby talks about the mood of the film, which she says reflects “the end of the ’60s – the end of one of the most “hopeful, idealistic moments in our society” … to be replaced by “more materialism, self-indulgence, and convention.” She feels that, at the end of the film, “hope is gone … there are no answers.” Bob agrees: “Bobby needs to be searching for the rest of his life.”
— Peggy Earle and Bill Kelley III, High-Def Watch producer
Returning Home
(1&2) Bobby takes the ferry to his family home, on an island in the Puget Sound. (3) The family congregates in the living room: left, family friend Samia Glavia (Irene Dailey), brother Carl (Raph Waite), his girlfriend Susan (Catherine Van Oost). (4) Bobby and Susan are attracted to each other. (5-7) He takes his father, Nicholas (William Challee), for a walk toward the sound.
SPECS:
100 GB disc
TRUE 4K mastering
Captured on 35mm film stock, with Arriflex cameras mounted with spherical lens (1.85:1 aspect).
Video bitrate: Averages in the upper 80 Megabits per second range, with a run time of 98 minutes.
HDR10 maximum light level: No numbers provided.
Max Frame average light level: No numbers provided.
Box office: It opened on September 11, 1970, at the New York Film Festival, and finished the year with a $1.2 million box office, from a $1.6 million production budget. Its lifetime box office topped $18 million.
Rotten Tomatoes: Top Critics 82 percent, Audiences 84 percent.
Metacritic: Critics 85 percent, User score 7.8
Awards: Nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress in Supporting Role, and Best Screenplay.
Golden Globes: Nominated for five awards, including Best Motion Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Screenplay, and winner for Best Supporting Actress, which Karen Black tied with Maureen Stapleton for “Airport.”
National Board of Review – Top ten films and winner for Best Supporting Actress
National Film Preservation – 2000 winner for National Film Registry
Indiewire.com – Top 100 Best Movies of the 1970s – “Five Easy Pieces” lands at No. 56 between Woody Allen’s “Manhattan” (1979) and David Lynch’s “Eraserhead” (1977). Bob Fosse’s “All That Jazz” was No. 1.
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