Five Easy Pieces (Bob Rafelson, 1970)

Full of flavours of the period 1970; but I can't believe it was a commercial success when first released in that year. The whole film is a series of stage plays that pretend to be popular existentialist yet overly so. The theme of dropping out of a prodigal son from a highbrow middle-class milieu could have been attractive to a certain group of people of a certain period, but looking back this moral side seems tepid. Of course Jack Nicholson is 100 percent Jack Nicholson; he can't be anybody else. The great merit of the film is its road movie aspect that unfortunately is not fully pursued. Two women hitchhikers are interesting, the lansdscapes of northern California (near Arcata?) into the Oregon dunes area are quite nice (could have been better, though). To me this could be made over into a much better version now. It may worth trying. And still I don't know what "five easy pieces" mean. Does he play the piano five times in the film? No, I think he played only three times, but I may be wrong.