Thursday, September 17, 2026, 6:30 pm to 9:30 pm
Instructor: Erich Hertz, Ph.D., Siena University
Five Easy Pieces (1970) occupies a decisive place in cinema, standing among the first major statements of New Hollywood and interrogating the American fantasy of self-reinvention. It also helped define Jack Nicholson as a figure through whom American cinema explored alienation, not as heroic rebellion but as volatility and disquieting self-awareness. As a former classical pianist now working on an oil rig, his character can see through every role available to him but cannot imagine how to live outside of them.
Director Bob Rafelson was equally central to this cinematic shift, helping shape a skeptical, character-driven mode of filmmaking that challenged studio-era formulas by foregrounding moral ambiguity and unresolved endings.
Our seminar will discuss how Five Easy Pieces turns the American promise of mobility into a study of evasion. Its protagonist has fled everything: family, art, and class privilege, but flight has not liberated him from the forms he rejects. The film’s roads, diners, motels, oil fields, and family homes form a landscape of movement but with no arrival. Its bleak force lies in this recognition: his refusal of inherited forms may look like independence, but it also reveals his inability to imagine a life not organized by escape.
Are you interested in “just” seeing this movie? Visit the public screening page here.
Cinema Classics Seminars offer an entertaining and engaging way to learn more about some of the true classics of world cinema. All students receive an introductory lecture before the film and a guided discussion after the film. In addition, those in attendance receive a ticket to see it on the big screen, as well as popcorn and a drink. Please note: the screening associated with this seminar will be open to the public, as well.
Please contact BMFI Programs and Education Manager Jill Malcolm with any questions.
$30 for members, $40 for non-members
Schedule