Just rented Jack Nicholson’s Five Easy Pieces the other day. Not a real edge-of-your seat-er, but a interesting character study. I liked the film, though not as much as I had hoped.
Help me out, though. What does the title refer too? Did I miss something? Am I just daft?
Pieces of music, perhaps?
That’s right. A traditional beginning piano student’s assignment.
Another question is “What is the relevance to the movie?” Nicholson’s character was, IIRC, an accomplished pianist (as opposed to a beginner) who abandoned the ivories to work on an oil rig or something.
Man, it’s been forever since I’ve seen this, but IIRC, when he was a music student, he had to give a recital. Instead of a challenging work or two to display his virtuosity, he selected five easy pieces. The point being, he’s been doing that ever since – just kind of sliding by rather than expending some effort and getting somewhere in his life.
DD
There is a Five East Pieces composed by Igor Stravinsky.
Whether or not that is what the title refers to, I don’t know.
EASY not East. Drat.
The movie is probably only gonna be remembered for the diner scene where Jack tries to order something not on the menu.
Dupea: I’d like a plain omelette, no potatoes, tomatoes instead, a cup of coffee and wheat toast.
Waitress (points to the menu): No substitutions.
Dupea: What do you mean? You don’t have any tomatoes?
Waitress: Only what’s on the menu. You can have a No. 2–a plain omelette. It comes with cottage fries and rolls.
Dupea: Yeah, I know what it comes with. But it’s not what I want
Waitress: Well, I’ll come back when you make up your mind.
Dupea: Wait a minute. I have made up my mind. I’d like a plain omelette, no potatoes on the plate, a cup of coffee and a side order of wheat toast
Waitress: I’m sorry, we don’t have any side orders of toast…an English muffin or a coffee roll.
Dupea: What do you mean you don’t make side orders of toast? You make sandwiches, don’t you?
Waitress: Would you like to talk to the manager?
Dupea: You’ve got bread and a toaster of some kind?
Waitress: I don’t make the rules.
Dupea: OK, I’ll make it as easy for you as I can. I’d like an omelette, plain, and a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast, no mayonnaise, no butter, no lettuce. And a cup of coffee.
Waitress: A No. 2, chicken sal san, hold the butter, the lettuce and the mayonnaise. And a cup of coffee. Anything else?
Dupea: Yeah. Now all you have to do is hold the chicken, bring me the toast, give me a check for the chicken salad sandwich, and you haven’t broken any rules.
Waitress (spitefully): You want me to hold the chicken, huh?
Dupea: I want you to hold it between your knees.
From the screenplay by Bob Rafelson and Carole Eastman
(Just picture Jack, the homicidal maniac, saying this. And then he clears the table with a swoosh of his hand and arm?
Great movie-- one of my favorites. Thanks, Sam, for the recap of that famous scene. I’m amazed at how may people aren’t familiar with it.
The coffee shop where the famous “hold the chicken between your knees” scene was filmed is the Red Rooster, just outside of Chemainus, about 30 miles north of Victoria, BC on Vancouver Island. Great home-cooked food. I’ve never ordered the chicken salad sandwich, or the toast, myself.
Two neat little things about this movie:
It was the screen debut of Sally Struthers, later to win fame as Archie and Edith Bunker’s daughter Gloria on All In the Family.
In a bit part we saw choreographer Toni Basil, who later, in the 80s, had the immortal pop hit “Mickey.”
When Bob Rafelson made Five Easy Pieces he was already an Emmy-winning director for The Monkees. He also directed the Monkees movie, Head.
Toni Basil also played the dark-haired New Orleans prostitute in Easy Rider.
I just saw Five Easy Pieces a week or so ago, and I thought to myself, “What’s the deal with Toni Basil having bit parts in Jack Nicholson movies with the word ‘easy’ in the titles?”
As an aside, Rafelson and Nicholson were close friends, and Nicholson co-wrote Head with him. He may have had something to do with the writing of FEP also.
Bobby plays a couple of easy classical pieces: Chopin’s e-minor Prelude and Mozart’s d-minor Fantasy. There are other classical pieces in the movie, but they are NOT easy.
I always thought the title was a cheeky play on words, i.e. the other 3 easy pieces were the women!