The decades-long feud between Dennis Hopper and Henry Fonda
The late 1960s gave way to a wave of new young filmmakers who were determined to shape Hollywood into a more creative space. Inspired by European and avant-garde directors, the American film industry began to shift further away from the dominance of the studio system, welcoming new figures who took a considerably more radical approach to the medium.
The New Hollywood movement allowed directors like Martin Scorsese and Brian De Palma to thrive. However, the era was kickstarted by several key films, including Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde and Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider. These films welcomed greater violence to the mainstream, subverting the typical happy Hollywood ending with an excess of brutality, disillusionment and death.
Easy Rider follows two bikers, played by Hopper and Peter Fonda, as they drive through America’s Southwest, meeting various hippie characters along the way. The pair find themselves disenchanted with freedom, which proves to be futile as a once-hopeful era reaches its end. With too many problems cursing the country, from racism to class disparities, the biking duo learn that there is no way that freedom can be achieved, finding themselves sucked into an American nightmare.
The movie used unconventional editing techniques, most notably in the LSD scene, in which Hopper and Fonda’s characters experience an awful acid-fuelled trip in a graveyard with two prostitutes. Their paranoia is emphasised by chaotic editing, creating a fast-paced collage of fear.
Easy Rider was nominated for ‘Best Original Screenplay’ at the Academy Awards, which Hopper, Fonda and Terry Southern successfully won. However, Hopper and Fonda have since struggled to call each other friends. There has long been a dispute between the two over who deserves credit for the film. Fonda once stated that the movie was all his idea, “It was just my vision and voice writing it at the Lake Shore Motel in 1967.”
It is evident that Easy Rider was the result of Fonda, Hopper and Southern collaborating closely, as well as, according to Southern, the actors improvising “within the framework of the obligations of the scene.” Yet, none of them could decide who was worthy of being called the screenwriter. In 1992, Hopper sued Fonda over credit, which they settled out of court. A few years later, Hopper sued again, this time targetting Fonda’s company Pando, when the film was sold to Colombia Pictures.
The complaint stated: “In the years since the release of the picture, Pando Company’s continuing breach of the Easy Rider agreement [promising Mr. Hopper the two-fifths share] has harmed the relations among the parties, forcing Hopper to engage in litigation and to threaten continued litigation among the parties.”
With Hopper insisting that he wrote Easy Rider, not Fonda, the pair were never able to resolve their issues. When Jack Nicholson, who starred in the film, was nominated for an Oscar in 1997 for As Good As It Gets, competing against Fonda, who was recognised for his performance in Ulee’s Gold, there was only one person Hopper wanted to win.
He told The Transom, “We [Hopper and Fonda] weren’t friends when we shot the movie. Jack Nicholson and I are friends.” Nicholson won the Oscar, much to Hopper’s delight. Hopper would die in 2010 and Fonda in 2019, with the pair never truly resolving their issues – the latter was even banned from Hopper’s funeral.
