Five Easy Pieces

Following Jack Nicholson’s breakout supporting turn in Easy Rider, director Bob Rafelson devised a powerful leading role for the new star in the searing character study Five Easy Pieces. Nicholson plays the now iconic cad Bobby Dupea, a shiftless thirtysomething oil rigger and former piano prodigy immune to any sense of responsibility, who returns to his upper-middle-class childhood home, blue-collar girlfriend (Karen Black, in an Oscar-nominated role) in tow, to see his estranged, ailing father. Moving in its simplicity and gritty in its textures, Five Easy Pieces is a lasting example of early 1970s American alienation.FILM INFOUnited States197098 minutesColor1.85:1EnglishSpine #546SPECIAL FEATURESRestored high-definition digital transfer, supervised by director of photography László Kovács, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray editionAudio commentary by director Bob Rafelson and interior designer Toby RafelsonSoul Searching in "Five Easy Pieces," a 2009 video piece featuring RafelsonBBStory, a 2009 documentary about the legendary film company BBS Productions, with Rafelson; actors Jack Nicholson, Karen Black, and Ellen Burstyn; filmmakers Peter Bogdanovich and Henry Jaglom; and othersDocumentary from 2009 about BBS featuring critic David Thomson and historian Douglas BrinkleyAudio excerpts from a 1976 AFI interview with RafelsonTrailers and teasersEnglish subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearingPLUS: An essay by critic Kent Jones