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The emotional turmoil that FIVE EASY PIECES inflicted is precisely what endeared it to me — a film that challenges our morals and tests our empathy to places often beyond our understanding. Setting and landscape become a two-factor allegory for character and tone: the hardened rock exterior, gritty and crude; the labor and volatility involved in exhuming something of value. And that rugged terrain incarnate takes its shape in Robert Dupea (Nicholson), a nihilistic drifter completely detached from sentimental burden. Sporadic and restless, he never stays in one place for too long — and as we greet him for the first time, his exasperation with the rigging life is egregiously palpable.
His only baggage in tow is Ray (Karen Black), a small-town waitress who adores him despite his abhorrent treatment of her. Often he disappears without a word, sexually meandering for days to frolic inconsequentially in a feckless vacuum of empty hedonism. The world is his playground, and so long as he keeps emotions at an arm’s length, nothing can feasibly scathe him. This reckless fantasy only carries him so far, coming to an abrupt halt when Rae reveals she’s with child, followed by the unexpected arrest of his best friend Elton.
This marks the first time in the story where Rob is forced to confront the very thing he vehemently eschews — reality and its implications. An impromptu LA sojourn sees him reunite with his sister, but the reconciliation is not a happy one. He learns his father is ill and mute, having suffered two strokes, stirring a long dormant sense of feeling. Unable to stomach the creeping guilt, he agrees to drive up to Washington and see his father, albeit with heavy reluctance.
What lies ahead rumbles with ominous discord, for Rob must also come to terms with a past he thought he’d never again revisit — his fleeting career as a concert pianist as per family tradition. And around every corner rests the threat of sensory inundation in the form of photos and sonatas, launching him into a vulnerability from which he cannot escape. Suffocating under the weight of both past and present, he finally breaks during a solo outing with his father. Through sobs and tears he musters an apology, and feeling his deed is done, decides once more to move up and onward with his life.
Raw, trenchant sorrow bleeds relentlessly from Rob’s defeated spirit — he is broken, troubles perpetually unresolved, and it forces the viewer into a similar space of discomfort where we must weather our own ambivalence and face a test of ethos. Does he deserve our sympathy, after all the grief he’s engendered amongst those who love him? Is his visit really redemptive? I want to understand him — and I do, in a way — but it’s hard not to let my resentment irrationally dominate. There are too many ambiguities to simply capitulate to emotion, a whole familial history about which we know hardly anything.
Even still, redemptive breakthroughs can’t fully compensate for the damage he’s caused. Perhaps he does eventually stand up for Rae in a moment of mounting tension, but that doesn’t prevent him from surreptitiously and cruelly disposing of her at the film’s end. Efforts are made, but none of them ever come to fruition. Is a solitary attempt enough? If we don’t spare him any sympathy, does that place us in equal standing with his own stunted morals?
There’s a lyrical progression to the film, and it vacillates violently from lighter, mellifluous moments to staccato bouts of tempestuous cacophony, and these jarring juxtapositions are not exclusive to one theme, motif or tone, but rather representative of an overarching artistic unity. Every other moment unfolding around Rob is a microcosmic representation of his own strife: erudition at odds with ruffian naivete; external expectation and personal validation; freedom or imprisonment. Even as disjointed as FIVE EASY PIECES can feel, it’s always wholly cohesive — a sort of trick room illusion only made possible by a director of accomplished focus and vision.
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