Kirsten Dunst Elizabethtown Premiere

Kirsten Dunst Elizabethtown Premiere

Kirsten Dunst Elizabethtown Premiere

In America, when people are facing difficulty, they like to take a drive in a car. Getting out onto the open road represents freedom and unlimited possibilities. Many Hollywood films depict traveling on a wide highway or on a winding narrow road as an escape, with characters undergoing various degrees of success in their attempt to get away from it all.

Easy Rider

Directed by Dennis Hopper, the 1969 film Easy Rider shows drug dealers flush with cash who purchase motorcycles and head from Los Angeles to New Orleans for Mardi Gras and freedom. Peter Fonda plays Captain America, with an American flag on his jacket, and stars and stripes painted on the gas tank of his chopper. Dennis Hopper plays Billy, clothed in a leather outfit referencing Native Americans.

The film explores late 60s America and the cultural variety inhabiting the country, including hippies, LSD, street ladies of New Orleans, and rednecks. Unfortunately, death stalks the trip, first through a murdered friend, then a bad LSD trip in a New Orleans cemetery. Ultimately death waits at the end of the road, when rednecks kill Captain America and Billy.