![]() I like that it's a lot of simple metaphors, like this thing about the road. "It's beautiful that the piano's out of tune. "Eighteen minutes in and we discover this about the guy," says Cholodenko. Annette Bening did that a lot on The Kids Are All Right (2010)."īobby then climbs atop a truck bed carting a piano and bangs out a song over the din of honking horns as the truck pulls away. I try to be very clear about what scripts and actors are about, where they're headed, and holding that space, and it's allowed me to let the actor go off book, to add things I might not have thought of. ![]() "You sense this openness between actor and director," says Cholodenko. First he gets out of his car, perturbed, and yells at drivers, a scene that shows Nicholson in full tantrum mode. The next hint that Bobby isn't really a blue-collar guy is during a traffic jam on a highway. Traditional Hollywood is close-ups and medium shots and overs, and this is very anti-Hollywood."Įxposed: Cholodenko admires how the film objectively presents the rather unpleasant world of its anti-hero Bobby Dupea, played by Jack Nicholson (bottom) with his girlfriend Karen Black. (Photo/Screenpulls: (top) Columbia/Photofest (bottom) The Criterion Collection) It's brave to trust your actors like that, to let the performances do their thing. ![]() It's a two-shot that isn't milking the emotion. "There's not a lot of cutting, which gives the comedy a tension," explains Cholodenko, who notices that Rafelson takes the same approach when Bobby goes out to the parking lot to console Rayette, who's moping in the car. Their silly, smiling exchange is mostly played out in one take framing Bobby's head between theirs. Bobby stays behind to flirt with a pair of women one lane over. Later at a bowling alley with an oil rig pal and his wife, Bobby patronizes Rayette, who leaves in a huff. He doesn't respect her.' You started off wondering where you are, but these little things help put it together, but in a fun way." It's a small gesture, but you're like 'OK, I kind of get this guy. Reacting to the music and Rayette says a lot. Plus, obviously, what the song is about: stand by your man." Though no one's said anything yet, a few shots of Bobby hesitating, entering and It was a way to identify with the real world. "At that time, there was a trend away from traditional score, and they used these needle drops. "It's diegetic and non-diegetic sound," says Cholodenko. The Wynette song, we learn, is a source score of sorts, since it's playing on the phonograph of the modest one-bedroom house he shares with his girlfriend, diner waitress/aspiring country singer Rayette (Karen Black). "It introduced a kind of palette with this amber, magic-hour look. "I rememberīeing impressed by these shots," says Cholodenko. As the sun sets, and Bobby drives away, Tammy Wynette's doleful "Stand By Your Man" replaces the sound of machinery. Rafelson's movie, considered an early benchmark of the new golden age of cinema, dips into the peripatetic life of willful outsider Bobby Dupea (Jack Nicholson), whom we meet in the opening montage of still shots as he works on an oil rig against a big sky. It just had this searing impact on me, from script to visuals, all the components. "I was a teaching assistant for Andrew Sarris at Columbia, and he showed this film in his 'Cinema of the '70s' class. ![]() Wise Library at the DGA to watch Bob Rafelson's 1970 masterpiece Five Easy Pieces. I just had a visceral reaction to it," says Lisa Cholodenko as she settles into a chair in the Robert E. ![]()
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