My question is if there is a simple answer to why he says that? Or what your opinion about this is, what your individual ideas are. Because, quite frankly, I really didn't get that at all. The only idea that I have is that they tried to gain freedom through money and that that was wrong.
sharewell yeah.. as a result of the journey they had taken untill that point Billy realised that freedom cannot be achieved by playing by society's rules. Getting "the big money" does not make anyone free.. that is only one more of society's webs.. an ideea inspired to the people for the benefit of the monetary system (one of modern society's methods of "enslaving" people), so Billy realised that all this chase for "the big money" only made them sink more into the reality of modern day society..As George (Jack Nicholson's character) puts it best during one of their campfire chats: "no one can really be free when they're being bought and sold at the market". Billy on the other hand was just another sheep in the flock.. blind to the reality surrounding him.
shareI thought the "we blew it comment" was pretty powerful and would have made a better ending than the murders.
I disagree that they blew it in regards to money or buying into the system. That is one possible reading, and probably one that that kind of counterculture movement would support, that they lost their soul in other words.
I think the comment held a much broader meaning in that they "blew it" in terms of making use of their freedom. They had basically all they had ever wanted and it turned into a kind of morbid, drug induced nightmare at the end with no real happiness or anything to show for it. In the end they were unable to make anything positive out of their freedom.
The comment could also be a criticism of the 60s counterculture movement in general- it started out with a lot of potential for promoting peace, understanding, ect... but ended up in drugs, sex, and rock and roll (not that those things are bad necessarily, but they are empty as an ideology and ultimately degenerate into hedonism.)
I thought them getting shot at the end was just too heavy handed, it was like SEE what happens when you don't follow the rules, the rednecks (who serve as a kind of guardians of the status quo) will eventually get you. To me a much more interesting question is, now that we have all this freedom, what do we do with it? In the end can we make anything positive out of it?
i thought they blew it because their friend was mudered right in front of them and all they did in respect was take his money and pretend like nothing happened. They should have called the FBI and his family and had the people put to justice, instead they acted like stupid *beep* losers. That's probably why they ended up getting killed. Karma. Their journey should have changed with the tides, but they kept on in their hajj.
share.. that would have meant cops, fbi, courts, media, restricted movement and loss of anonymity, fear of retaliation by the accused etc .... 'a drag' - big time
Entrenchment in all they were trying to escape
.. they couldnt bring their friend back to life, he was gone
they should have anonymously notified the authorities of his whereabouts tho (mf)
they would have been the prime suspects ... there was no point in going to the sheriff in the last town, with view to his attitude in the cafe for eg. .... 1969 = largely indoctrinated grey set, against their kind, what were their chances for fair judicial treatment (Wyatt does say 'we need to get his personal stuff to his family' or such)
Excellent question : 'Why does Wyatt say: We blew it?'
Nice comment! Profound and thought-provoking. "Now that we have all this freedom, what do we do with it?" That, indeed, is the question. Thank you!
shareI think you both are correct - to me, it means that neither conservative values (cafe) or liberal approaches to life (hippies etc) brought about the freedom and happiness they seek. In the end, they have money, but nothing else.
shareWhat an awesome thread. There's nothing worse than overanalyzing something too beautiful and complex to analyze with the limited capacity words provide us, but people's thoughts on this thread have been tremendous.
I think Greatfool hits closest to the target here, though. The only thing I'd disagree with is, I don't think your point on them having "blown it" by wasting their freedom conflicts with the idea of them blowing it by having become just another part of the economic chain, "the system." When I saw the film, I honestly felt like it could be either or both of those things. In other words, he could be saying they "blew it" on both fronts.
Anyway, again, awesome thread. The funny thing is, the "official" analysis posted by Balducci is about the least intelligent comment on here, the one that least approaches the truth of this film. And Chinaski's comment about this film being conservative is surprisingly on-point. The opinion that this film is simply a "hippies rule, squares suck" statement is, ironically, as ignorant as the rednecks in the film. (The complexity of the film's statement, though, is why I have serious problems with the ending, though; again, similar to GreatFool's thoughts above)
I think your own answer is very close to correct. The guy living off the land with his large family, is what he was striving for ('this is a great place - I mean it. You're living off the land'). That was his (Wyatt) ideal . I think that is what he meant when he stated "we blew it" in his final dialog. All they did is drugs, when they could have bought land and lived. He could have used their money to actually do what he dreamed of.
shareI don't think he was striving for it, but he definitely respected the guy living off the land. The same thing happened at the commune. Wyatt was overly optimistic for these people and wished them the best. He probably even wished he could fit in with them, but he could not. He said at one point that he just had to keep moving.
Perhaps on their adventure they hoped to find something new, to change somehow. In the end they met a lot of people but left them all behind, and were left alone as at the beginning, still searching for something, blown their money. I guess this would be a reason to say "we blew it", but I don't think buying a plot of land or joining the commune is a solution either.
There's a huge gap between having respect for some foreign way of life, and making it one's own.
~ Observe, and act with clarity. ~
PERHAPS this is unrelated, perhaps it is a tribute, but the very last line of Tom Wolfe's classic book from 1968, "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test", was "WE BLEW IT!!!!" (repeated a few times).
I think of "Easy Rider" as a good companion piece to Wolfe's novel - as they both have pretty piercing insight into what was really going on at that time. The "movement" was disintegrating as fast as it was forming, and the realizations (perhaps they were survivalist in nature) of people like Wyatt were found at a deep subconscious level of being very honest with himself. The bad acid trip certainly stripped away all pretenses of freedom he may have been, shall we say, "riding easy" on.
It takes a brave kind of person to look at oneself squarely in the eye and call it like it is. Billy, by comparison, didn't really have much of a philosophical brain to muse on that stuff to heavily - he's an out-and-out hedonist. It is, I think, important to note that Wyatt probably is still temporarily reeling from his bad LSD trip - often times being "too close" to that space following an especially bad trip can result in very serious, perhaps accurate, but sometimes cynical, nihilistic conclusions. Wyatt's a bit of an unreliable narrator (although I still think his assessment is accurate).
I strongly recommend Wolfe's book if you're interested in the subject of just how quickly the counterculture imploded and the rather crippled legacy it left behind. As we speak there are people like Wyatt and Billy running around America, trying either a) to "find" whatever previous generations could not or did not, or b) are just "in it for the beer" ala Billy.
"There is no inner peace. There is only nervousness and death." - Fran Lebowitz
From: http://biblioteka.teatr-obraz.ru/files/file/English_cinema/American_Films_of_the_70s.pdf
Wyatt’s most provocative comment comes late in the film, during the final
campfire scene. Billy, shaking off recent events including George’s death,
exclaims, ‘‘We’ve done it. We’re rich, Wyatt.’’ Wyatt responds ‘‘You know,
Billy, we blew it.’’ This could be a statement on drugs, on the unpure origins
of the journey. It could be about an ultimate failure to connect with the
America outside the big cities. It could even be a metalinguistic comment
on the impossibility of creating a new culture using the structures of the old,
as David James suggests.15 The emphasis on personal failure could lead the
viewer back to interrogate the film. But ultimately this is a gnostic comment,
a gesture at profundity that is not necessarily profound. The comment defines
a fragile and contingent character who cannot easily summarize his
experience.
[deleted]
I don't know if anyone else noticed but right before they meet the hookers Wyatt reads the inscription "death is what closes a mans reputation and determines it as good or bad" and then a quick image of his motorcycle on fire flashes mirroring the same image we see at the close of the film. After reading the quote, Wyatt took in everything he's done with his life and on this trip and thought if I die in a fiery motorcycle crash tomorrow, would it have all been worth it??? I think this certainly contributes to his conclusion that "they blew it" along with all of the other things people have posted. That despite their "freedom" a fiery motorcycle crash is still going to be how it ended. I don't know, just a thought.
share"The emphasis on personal failure could lead the viewer back to interrogate the film. But ultimately this is a gnostic comment, a gesture at profundity that is not necessarily profound. The comment defines a fragile and contingent character who cannot easily summarize his experience."
Totally and utterly disagree with that. Quite honestly, whoever wrote that didn't understand the film at all. Idiotic stuff.
Surprisingly I agree with most of the other posts on this thread, they're actually pretty well thought out. Where's the 'this movie sucked and the line didn't mean anything', haha.
Anyway I read a great analysis out there on the interweb somehwere. His hypothesis was that Easy Rider is actually a CONSERVATIVE film, as opposed to counter-culture or anti-establishment.
As the two protagonists journey towards Marti Gras, the ultimate hedonistic party of the time (I guess they'd be going to Burning Man now), they come across alternatives to the nihilistic, empty life they're leading. The rancher with the 'incredible spread' (repeated for emphasis), the commune which in a way represents order, hard work, and family, and even Nicholson as the drunk but employed realist.
The film is making a sly argument that freedom doesn't equal having money, drugs, sex and being unattached to anything material. Instead, order, family, land, and even hard work are the keys to real freedom -- a very conservative idea. The 'freedom' to have long hair doesn't mean much if you end up shot down alone on the side of the road for it. Of course the film critiques bigotry and the small-minded keepers of the status quo, but it doesn't equate these with traditional values. The hippies on the commune are obviously well outside the norm, but their way of life is as old as humanity.
When he says 'we blew it', I think he's talking about the whole 60s counter-culture movement which had shifted from revolutionary socialist ideals and action to simple hedonism and fashion. Style over substance. He already had a premonition of his death, and I think he knew where this un-mindful path was taking them.
The timing of the film is pretty incredible as it coincides with the end of 60s idealism and in a way predicts the hedonism and nihilism of the 70s. The Summer of Love in '69 is really a caricature of the social movements of the 60s -- the meaningful ideals replaced with bad drugs, bad hair, no showers, and the worst clothes of the century. They really could have made a difference -- but most of those hippies in '69 turned into investment bankers and corporate drones, they hardly changed a thing. They blew it.
RIP Dennis
Your analysis is excellent and thought provoking. I agree with you. Well done!
shareIt's the million-dollar question. There are several possible answers.
Personally, I see it as their having made all the money they will ever need, yet they have passed by the rancher, the commune, the parade, lost their new friend George, been all but told along the way how great they have it (nice bikes, freedom, not pretentious, etc.), and in the end, all they did was go to Mardi Gras, get laid and drop acid. Oh, and with a plan to "retire" in Florida.
In other words, they had it all and accomplished nothing with it. Wyatt admires the rancher, earnestly believes the crops at the commune will grow and says, "They're gonna make it", and hears George's lecture on WHY people are afraid of them, i.e., George is telling them they are "good" guys. But in the end, they leave both ranch and commune, don't really "want" to believe/trust George's ideal of their lives, and half-abandon George after he is killed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB9hQWTbtEg answers it alright, I think.
Do right and be rewarded. Do wrong and be punished. Believe the stories.
Great thread. Thank you.
shareYou could also say that Wyatt is speaking for America itself, implying that it had freedom but blew it.
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