Daily Dialogue — March 5, 2014

George Hanson: You know, this used to be a helluva good country. I can’t understand what’s gone wrong with it.
Billy: Man, everybody got chicken, that’s what happened. Hey, we can’t even get into like, a second-rate hotel, I mean, a second-rate motel, you dig? They think we’re gonna cut their throat or somethin’. They’re scared, man.
George Hanson: They’re not scared of you. They’re scared of what you represent to ‘em.
Billy: Hey, man. All we represent to them, man, is somebody who needs a haircut.
George Hanson: Oh, no. What you represent to them is freedom.
Billy: What the hell is wrong with freedom? That’s what it’s all about.
George Hanson: Oh, yeah, that’s right. That’s what’s it’s all about, all right. But talkin’ about it and bein’ it, that’s two different things. I mean, it’s real hard to be free when you are bought and sold in the marketplace. Of course, don’t ever tell anybody that they’re not free, ’cause then they’re gonna get real busy killin’ and maimin’ to prove to you that they are. Oh, yeah, they’re gonna talk to you, and talk to you, and talk to you about individual freedom. But they see a free individual, it’s gonna scare ‘em.
Billy: Well, it don’t make ’em runnin’ scared.
George Hanson: No, it makes ’em dangerous.

— Easy Rider (1969), written by Peter Fonda & Dennis Hopper & Terry Southern

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Lecture.

Trivia: Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson — huge fans of Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni — invited their idol to the first screening of their film. Antonioni was sufficiently impressed to cast Nicholson in his next feature film, The Passenger (1975).

Dialogue On Dialogue: George plays a Mentor type in Easy Rider and nowhere does he bestow more in the way of wisdom than his ‘lecture’ on freedom. He is also a sage as he unwittingly foretells each of the riders’ deaths… including his own.

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