Five Easy Pieces

A classic but depressing tale of a troubled drifter, Five Easy Pieces has a lot to offer the intellect, but for most of the movie you'll be searching desperately for a character you like!

Robert Dupea (Jack Nicholson) is a wonderful classical pianist who has turned his back on his talent and family. The movie begins with him wasting his life working in an oil field and fooling around on his witless yet faithful girlfriend, Rayette (Karen Black).

Dupea discovers his father has had several strokes and may not have long to live, so he returns to his family home where he is attracted to a sophisticated woman (Susan Anspach) who questions his abandonment of music.

Will he take some responsibility for his life or run as he has always done?

Nicholson plays the type of character he excels in, a harsh, caustic bastard who treats Rayette appallingly, yet realises his behavior is cruel and unfair. Detailed character study pictures are rarely seen in mainstream cinema, and many would likely be turned off by the leisurely pace and lack of action in the film. Yet there is much to recommend it, as evidenced by the four Academy nominations it received (Best Actor, Actress, Screenplay and Picture).

Despite the 1.85:1 image being anamorphically-enhanced, the image is not especially gripping, due to the original photography which is lackluster at best. Shadow detail is quite lacking, but the picture is acceptably sharp and free of film weave. Colour is typical of the era, being fairly natural, but a little under-saturated. Film artifacts are generally unobtrusive, but about halfway through the disc we do get some rather lovely scratch lines running through the picture.

As I've mentioned in the past, you tend to accept what you get with transfers of old films, and I've seen (and happily paid for) far worse than this for old films that I really enjoy. Let me restate: Any quibbles with this disc are with the source material, not the transfer.

Audio is poor. Most of the problems are due to the cheap production values, with very poor recording techniques in evidence. Characters become quieter and more muffled when they turn their heads from camera (and therefore the boom mic), and room ambience often threatens to drown out dialogue.

The most bothersome problem I found with the soundtrack is noticeable wow, which made the piano playing (which is intended to sound beautiful) grate on my ears, as pitch wavered erratically.

On the positive side, the sound is not harsh, and there is no objectionable hiss, hum or distortion, but I've heard older films sound a lot better, so I was disappointed here.

Very basic filmographies. Barely worth mentioning.

A good film, with an excellent early performance from Nicholson, but definitely not for everybody. Some extras would have been nice, Columbia!