Five Easy Pieces (1970)
I'd like a chicken salad sandwich, hold the movie.
What can you say about Five Easy Pieces?
…
…
…no, really, I’m asking. This isn’t really a movie where any stuff happens. I guess it’s a character study about Bobby Eroica1 Dupea (Jack Nicholson), a former piano prodigy from a well-off family. When we meet him, he’s cosplaying as a blue-collar oil rig worker and is shacked up with the (low-key pregnant) waitress Rayette (Karen Black).
When Bobby learns his father has had a stroke, the prodigal son returns to his ancestral home of Washington with the tacky Rayette in tow. There, he sleeps with his brother’s fiancée, Catherine (Susan Anspach), whom he asks to run away with him. She wisely rejects this, telling him:
You’re a strange person, Robert. I mean, what will you come to? If a person has no love for himself, no respect for himself, no love of his friends, family, work, something, how can he ask for love in return? I mean, why should he ask for it?
So Bobby’s stuck with Rayette, and as they leave Washington, she tells him that “there isn’t anybody going to look after you and love you as good as I do.” While that might be true, it doesn’t stop Bobby from ditching her at a gas station by hopping into a logging truck bound for Alaska.2 Bye Felicia.
Rating: 5 easy pieces/10.3
Cast and Crew
Five Easy Pieces is Jack Nicholson’s first starring role. Before his breakout, he had some writing success with The Trip (1967, a film about an acid trip) and the Monkees film Head (1968). But it was his electric supporting role in 1969’s Easy Rider that catapulted Nicholson to stardom. We’re gonna see this guy so many more times.
Quick Hits:
Rayette is obsessed with the songs of Tammy Wynette. Wynette’s one of your early country music stars, hitting it big with songs like “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” and “Stand by Your Man” (both 1968). She was once married to George Jones, who was known as “the Rolls-Royce of country music.”
Toni Basil, who played a hitchhiker, is best known for her #1 new wave classic “Mickey” (that’s the one with the line, “hey Mickey you’re so fine you’re so fine you blow my mind hey Mickey!”) She was also a choreographer and dancer—some of her choreography credits include Head4 and the Talking Heads music video “Once in a Lifetime.”
The Trivia
So why’s this movie called Five Easy Pieces anyway? Well, that’s ostensibly the title of a book of easy piano pieces Robert played as a child (though this explanation was cut from the film). It also alludes to the five classical pieces played in the film5: two from Chopin, two from Mozart, and one from Bach. We’re gonna be watching a whole movie about Mozart later, so today’s Trivia section is just on Bach and Chopin.
Here’s a timeline of some famous composers with our two subjects highlighted. You’ll note that Bach is firmly in the Baroque period (it actually ends with his death6) while Chopin is primarily considered a Romantic.
To some, Johann Sebastian Bach is God. No one taught future generations more about harmony, counterpoint, and structure than Bach. Works like The Well-Tempered Clavier and The Art of the Fugue7 weren’t just compositions—they were blueprints for learning the architecture of Western music.
Two more of his pieces to know by name:
The Brandenburg Concertos, a series of six concertos dedicated to the Margrave of Brandenburg.
The Goldberg Variations: 30 variations on a simple aria. Probably the most famous version was recorded by pianist Glenn Gould in 1981.
Beyond those, there are the ones with boring names that you’d probably recognize if you heard them. There’s the spooky organ piece Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. There’s his Cello Suites, which were rediscovered by Spanish cellist Pablo Casals; the Prelude from #1 in G Major is the go-to piece for anyone holding that instrument.8 Then there’s Air on the G String; you’re welcome to make your own tired dad joke about its title.
Bach was music director for St. Thomas Church in Leipzig for over 25 years, so he also wrote a lot of religious music. Many of these were cantatas9, including the banger Jesu, Joy Of Man’s Desiring.10 Bach was a Lutheran, and he also set the hymn A Mighty Fortress is Our God—which was written by Martin Luther—to music.
I know what you’re thinking: “music schmusic, how many kids did this dude have?” Twenty. Daddy Bach trained his kids in the family business, and his son Carl Philipp Emanuel (C. P. E) Bach became a composer and court harpsichordist for King Frederick II. Bach’s youngest, the composer Johann Christian Bach, moved to London and became known for sonatas and operas.11
Frédéric Chopin is a bit easier to know than Bach, mostly because the main thing to know about him is that he’s Polish. “Polish composer” = “Chopin”12 is a very, very strong “Jeopardy!” Pavlov.
Chopin wrote mazurkas (a Polish folk dance) and polonaises (another Polish dance)13. The Chopin International Piano Competition is held in Poland and the busiest airport in Poland is the Warsaw Chopin Airport.14 Though he’s heavily associated with Poland, he spent half his life in Paris; most of him is buried in famed Parisian cemetery Père Lachaise.
For specific works by Chopin, you’ve gotta know:
The Minute Waltz, named for (approximately) how long it lasts
The Funeral March, part of his Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor.
Chopin checks many of the “Romantic stereotype” boxes: he did art, had a tragic love affair, and died young. That tragic love affair was with feminist author George Sand.15 Some of this is captured in the film A Song to Remember (1945), where Chopin was played by Cornel Wilde and Sand by Merle Oberon.16
Ah, one more Pavlov: the unrelated Kate Chopin (1850–1904) wrote “The Awakening.”
Odds and Ends
The part of Five Easy Pieces everyone seems to remember is this scene where Bobby asks for a side of toast in a diner. When told he can’t have that, he instead orders a chicken salad sandwich, hold everything—including the chicken. “You want me to hold the chicken, huh?” the waitress asks. “I want you to hold it between your knees,” Bobby responds. GOT ‘EEEEM.
That middle name, Eroica, comes from the name of Beethoven’s third symphony. We covered symphonies with famous names here.
This is foreshadowed in an earlier scene, when Bobby talks to his catatonic father. He admits: “I move around a lot. Not because I’m looking for anything really, but ‘cause I’m getting away from things that get bad if I stay.”
Counterpoint: Roger Ebert gave the film four stars and called Robert Eroica Dupea “one of the most unforgettable characters in American movies.” Counter-counterpoint: I know a bunch of dudes just like Robert Eroica Dupea and they suck and it’s easy to forget them.
As mentioned, Nicholson co-wrote Head. He co-wrote it with Bob Rafelson, who later directed Five Easy Pieces. If you’re keeping score, that’s three Head alumni connected to today’s movie.
Here are the pieces:
“Fantaisie in F minor” by Chopin
“Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue” by Bach
“Piano Concerto no. 9” by Mozart
“Prelude Op. 28, No. 4” by Chopin (here’s the scene with this one)
“Fantasia in D minor” by Mozart
Besides knowing that his death marked the end of the Baroque era, you should know Bach was born the same year as another Baroque legend: George Frideric Handel.
The Well-Tempered Clavier is made up of two volumes, each containing a prelude and fugue in every major and minor key. The Art of Fugue is a series of increasingly complex fugues based on a single theme, showcasing the depth of contrapuntal technique.
Here’s Yo-Yo Ma playing it in an episode of “The West Wing.”
From Latin for “to sing”; compare to sonata, “sounded” (i.e., distinct from being sung). Bach composed one for basically every Sunday service (but note that they don’t have to be religious).
Some other religious works include “St. John Passion” and “St. Matthew Passion,” both written for Good Friday services; the “Magnificat in D Major”; and his Latin “Mass in B Minor.”
Are there other people with the name “Bach”? Sure.
Richard Bach, author of “Jonathan Livingston Seagull.”
Catherine Bach, who played Daisy Duke “The Dukes of Hazzard.”
Barbara Bach, who played the Bond girl in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and later married Ringo Starr.
Peter Schickele, whose name isn’t Bach but who gave comedy concerts playing the music of the fictional composer “P. D. Q. Bach.”
Getting deeper, you’ll also want to know the Polish pianist slash prime minister Ignacy Jan Paderewski.
He was also known for nocturnes (means “of the night”) and études (means “studies”), but those aren’t so obviously Polish.
It’s not the only Polish airport you need to know, though! Kraków’s airport is named for Pope John Paul II, another guy who’s famously Polish.
Real name Amandine Aurore Lucile Dupin. You should know that she also had a relationship with the author Alfred de Musset; like Chopin, Musset did not take the breakup with her well.
Chopin was also played by Hugh Grant in Impromptu (1991), another film about said affair with George Sand. On r/Chopin, Impromptu was described as “a Chopin-oriented, more grown-up Amadeus.” Sure.