Contextual Studies

Discussion of the following scene from Easy Rider (1969):

The American New Wave film Easy Rider follows on the context of two hippies travelling across America in order to find 'spiritual truth'.

The scene begins with a long shot of two female and two male adolescent characters. The use of sound instantly gives us an initial idea of the setting which is believed to be by the side of the train tracks. Within this shot we can see the four smoking and drinking - and later trying acid for the first time.

The scene instantly is followed by jump cut. The following clip is a tilted camera movement of a building, in my personal opinion I believe this shot is an interpretation of the woman's point of view, as she starts to feel the trip - this follows a shot reverse shot pattern. The camera in the shot continues to tilt and slowly pans left - what is interesting upon this is that we start to realise the camera is pointing directly to the sun, which can burn out the lens. This is a clear example of an American new wave genre film, as the directors were intending on trying something different, potentially 'breaking the rules'. It was common in the 60's-70's that society were common to experiment and try new things, i.e acid, marijuana etc - leading to groups labelled as 'hippies'.

This theme continues throughout the soundtrack, we hear a religious speech given by the female character, the director chose to do this in order to convey the contrast of religion and purity to the 'sinning' of taking drugs - the religious connotations continue with iconography of the cross, with the camera panning around (360) continuously - this combining with the soundtrack creates an insight to the viewer to the sense of spirituality that the characters in the moment of taking drugs. Within lighting, we see natural lighting being used throughout. I feel this and the sound used is to create a sense of verisimilitude as it places the viewer into the setting.

The diegetic sound of the train tracks could also be interpreted as the female characters heartbeat throughout taking drugs, as it is repetitive throughout the scene, slowly fading out (due to editing) - symbolising the lack of reality and clarity when on drugs. The shots following often cut in with close up shots of characters and religious iconography, which as proven before could be the juxtaposition between the good (being religion) and the bad (being drugs, and the people associated with the female character), also reinforcing when the character reinstates consciousness from the high she is experiencing.