MovieChat Forums > Five Easy Pieces (1970) Discussion > Why does Bobby visit Tita at the recordi...

Why does Bobby visit Tita at the recording studio? Pleas explain!


After Elton is arrested, why does Bobby visit his sister Tita in LA at the recording Studio where she tells him about their father's strokes? How does he know she is in LA recording an album? As far as I remember, Bobby turned his back on his entire family, including Tita, and they don't know his exact wshereabouts either, so how come he visits her at the studio? The sound quality of the DVD-release is crap, so maybe I missed the piece of dialogue that explains why Bobby and Tita meet.

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This is a very good question, and I've often pondered the same thing. Sometimes I feel he visits her just because it's been a long time since he's seen his family and perhaps he misses them. The other thought might be that he was considering playing again after he quit and/or lost his rigging job, though he also may have showed up at the studio out of sheer boredom. Like many things about this movie, I think the answer is up to each individual viewer to decide. That's why I love this film; there are as many interpretations about it as there are people.

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The movie isn't specific, but I didn't find myself asking why - I assumed Bobby called home and found out Tita was working in LA near where he lived, or perhaps she had a semi-regular recording gig at the studio and Bobby called there. By the movie's end it is clear that Bobby's life had been constant see-sawing between the upper class elitism of his family and purposeless wandering. Bobby went to see his sister because his most recent aimless phase had run its course. He had been fired from his job (and called "dumb" by his dull-witted foreman), realized his best friend Elton was an *beep* cracker" who had started lecturing about family life while being a drunk criminal, and it was clear Rayette wanted to get serious about their relationship and starting a family (something Bobby wasn't at all interested in).

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Actually, I believe he quit his job. I don't think his drifting was "purposeless," rather it was part of a process. He chose to quit his job, chose to end the buddy-buddy nature he had with Elton, and was looking for another outlet.

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My personal take on this scene is that Bobby, having just visited Elton's home and family life and then the next day seeing his best friend get arrested. Just feels a bit down and even more alone so visits his sister just to see her??

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In my opinion, it was a transitional scene. He had just quit his job and was looking for a new outlet. He seemed to be close with Tita more than anyone else in his family as he mentioned her in the heart-to-heart with his father, and he was upset when he found her in bed with the male nurse. Also, he mentions something about "going into Canada," which may foreshadow the end.

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I had always assumed that the sister had contacted him in some way to notify him of the father's stroke.

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He wanted to borrow money

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...Bobby turned his back on his entire family, including Tita...
That's not quite the sense I got.

Throughout, Tita seems to be the only member of Bobby's family that he's genuinely fond of. Bobby's is not a distant or adversarial relationship toward Tita. He's more accepting of her "singing" than the recording engineers are. He also uses her "nickname" comfortably.

Tita doesn't know where Bobby is not because Bobby doesn't like her but rather because Bobby knows Tita would pass on the information to the rest of the family.


...why does Bobby visit his sister Tita...
Because Bobby's now unemployed, he's at "loose ends" with plenty of free time. Perhaps he's trying a first stumbling step toward in some vague way "reconnecting" with his family. (And perhaps he hopes that Tita will somehow give him some money.)


...at the recording Studio..
Even though none of his family could find him, and even though none of his family had heard from him in years, he apparently was able to find Tita fairly easily.

One possibility: The film skips over relatively uninteresting parts, sometimes several days, for example we see three or four meals at his home and are then told he's been there two weeks! Quite likely he spent several days locating Tita.

Another wilder possibility: perhaps he secretly kept fairly good track of his family despite the rupture.

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[deleted]

Throughout the film Bobby goes from one extreme to another. It almost seems like a 'cleansing' exercise. He had just fell out with his friend, quit his job (his boss didn't want him there anyway) and been beaten by two policemen (agents??). He'd pretty much hit rock-bottom. He felt the need to 'cleanse' himself of the dirt of the working class and, dressed in a suit, decided to visit his sister, returning temporarily to that ultra-refined part of his existence.

"My car is outside."
"Naturally."

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recording studios are fun?



Season's Greetings!

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Maybe when he impulsively jumped into the truck in front of him on the freeway to play piano,the act struck a chord(forgive the pun)with him and his mind wandered to his sister, whom he missed and decided to go visit.

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bravo!




Season's Greetings!

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Here's your explanation:

Very simply, Partita is the only person who loves Bobbie for who he is, and of course, Bobbie knows this. So it's natural that he seeks her out when he feels so vulnerable after quitting.

As for the question of "how does he know where she is", he takes a chance on seeing her there, rather than going to the island house where he is sure to run into his father, who will be as irascible as ever to him. That's his expectation, having had no news of the strokes.

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