Dennis Hopper: An Artist Knows Who to Trust

 

"The cocaine problem in the United States is really because of me. There was no cocaine before Easy Rider on the street. After Easy Rider, it was everywhere". – Dennis Hopper

“No other persona better signifies the lost idealism of the 1960s than that of Dennis Hopper". - Matthew Hays. film critic

 

Dennis Hopper was such a good actor that you always assumed he wasn’t acting. That’s an extremely rare accomplishment.

In his greatest role, Frank, in Blue Velvet, he presents mental illness as empowering components of his personality, traits that render him forceful and attractive and violent. It’s a seamless performance. Sure, we say, that’s Hopper. But it’s not. He became a go-to-actor for offbeat roles which, to work, can only be played by so-called ordinary people. Yes, the best comedians are sad and serious. Life works in opposites. It always has.

In his most famous role, Billy, in Easy Rider, he detaches himself from Earth, Camus’ stranger on a motorcycle, tripping the light fantastic, burdened with worry but unencumbered by fear. With hair blowin’ in the wind, we motor with Hopper down dark halls of hippie existentialism. No flowers. No peace. No music. Fade to black.

He long mourned his buddy James Dean. He got sick on drugs and booze. He had five wives—with one marriage lasting eight days. Unemployable. Erratic. Dennis the Menace. Somehow his anger was transmuted to art—without artifice. He stumbled from the fifth dimension, torn and frayed but unbowed. He was what he was. 

He held a tremulous flame. Dennis Hopper enslaved his demons, kept them in chains, to be visited now and then, as they hunkered in their dungeons, waiting for a reprieve that never came. Because artists always know who to trust.

#dennishopper #easyrider #peterfonda #jacknicholson #michellephillips #motorcycle #1960s #james dean #rebelwithoutacause #bluevelvet #davidlynch

The Mamas & the Papas: It’s square to be hip

Harmony begins with dissonance

They were limousine hippies with wistful tunes about dreaming and having a bad (Mon) day.  It was hard to get them in focus.

The tall guy, John, tried damn hard to be cool, more like an aging beatnik fresh from a beer & bongo party than a tie-dyed, Haight-Asbury minstrel. The other Papa, Denny, was always bemused, pleasant-faced, perhaps recruited from a rural, Baptist choir. He sure wasn’t rebelling against anything or missing meals.

Cool was for the fool

Then the Mamas. Michelle: everything you ever wanted in a counter-culture chick. Slinky. Drop-dead-straight-part-in the-middle blonde hair. Slim as a stick. Beautiful face with wide-spaced eyes. Lolita pout. Cass, Mama # 2, was the polar opposite – a fact that, strangely, emphasized their unity. Read more.

Obviously, it couldn’t work. It should never, ever have worked.  No way… So they became international superstars. It didn’t last long – but it should never have lasted at all. The millisecond that producer Lou Adler heard them, he knew he had struck the Mother Lode.

The group didn’t make sense. There was something Monkee-ish about them. A pre-fab four feel. Yet they were the real thing.

Years later, someone realized it’s in fact square to be hip. Cool was for the fool. It was their very awkward alchemy that blended such glorious harmonies. Who knew? It's chic to be geek.

Anyway, nothing succeeds like surprise.