“I dictated the whole fucking thing”: the classic movie Dennis Hopper wanted all the credit for writing
Hollywood has introduced the world to some strange and indecipherable characters, not just on-screen. Dennis Hopper played many unforgettable roles during his career, from the terrifying psychosexual Frank Booth in Blue Velvet to a troubled father in Out of the Blue, but perhaps his most complex and captivating role was simply being himself.
He was a troubled figure, immersing himself in a world of drugs, alcohol, sex, and recklessness from a young age. As soon as he made his way to Hollywood, he was constantly engaging in orgies, snorting copious amounts of cocaine, and building himself quite the reputation as one of the industry’s wildest stars. Hopper easily possessed some of the craziest stories in Hollywood, liking wandering naked in the jungle on acid, doing the Russian Suicide Chair experiment, and accidentally snorting a woman’s ashes.
Yet, these stories often threaten to overshadow the genius that Hopper possessed. He might have been the industry’s biggest lover of hard drugs, but he also knew what made a great film. As the hippie era began to die out and optimism started to fade, cinema captured much of this nihilistic sentiment within the New Hollywood movement. American filmmakers started to take influence from indie and foreign cinema to create more experimental and divisive cinema, and Hopper made his directorial debut at the perfect time.
He directed Easy Rider in 1969, which he also starred in alongside Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson. The film follows two bikers as they travel across America loaded with the money they’ve just earned from smuggling cocaine. They meet some interesting characters along the way, get thrown in jail, meet prostitutes and trip in a graveyard, and inevitably meet their tragic demise, symbolising the death of American freedom.
It is a bleak film, but it became a cult classic noted for its unique techniques; for example, the graveyard sequence featured lots of choppy editing that emulated the horror of a bad trip. Hopper’s directing skills were sadly underappreciated by Hollywood, and he only directed a few more films after Easy Rider, none of which received the same praise.
Still, Hopper loved Easy Rider, and he sometimes expressed a desire to receive more credit for it. Hopper is credited as writing the film alongside Fonda and Terry Southern, who co-wrote the screenplay for Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove. Yet, Hopper is adamant that he is the only person who should’ve truly received all the credit for penning Easy Rider, telling The Guardian: “Terry Southern never wrote one fucking word of Easy Rider.”
He added, “Only the title Easy Rider came from him. He broke his hip; he couldn’t write. I used his office and I dictated the whole fucking thing in 10 days.” Asked whether Fonda made much contribution, Hopper continued, “He did. He had a name. He had a credit card. And he loved motorcycles. But Jack Nicholson was the one who put the deal together, he went in and told them there was no way they could lose money on a motorbike picture.”
Regardless, Easy Rider is considered a definitive movie from the era, still loved by many all these decades later.
