Five Easy Pieces

One of the films that opens American cinema of the 1970s. Bobby works in the oil fields. He bowls, he cannot get along with his girlfriend, and he belongs nowhere. Then we learn that he actually comes from a family of musicians and was trained as a pianist himself. When word comes that his father is ill, he goes back to the family house in the north. The real matter opens there: Bobby belongs neither to the world he left nor to the one he has returned to. Changing class is no solution, and neither is going back. The most cited scene takes place in a diner. Bobby asks the waitress for something not on the menu, she recites the rules, and the argument stops being about an order and becomes the whole of the man's anger. The scene became a template in the cinema of the decade. Jack Nicholson plays Bobby and Karen Black his girlfriend. Bob Rafelson directed. The production company, BBS, was one of the structures that pushed the era's independent strain into Hollywood. One of the starting points for anyone who likes character-driven 1970s cinema. For a viewer looking for resolution, the film ties nothing off and the ending cuts away without explaining.