Could I have one of those Chesterfields now?
I just heard the news about Dennis Hopper ’bout a couple hours ago and we’ve lost a great artist. I can’t say that I (we) didn’t see this one coming though. It was only a month or two ago that he was getting his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He looked so frail and it was evident that the time was near.
Nice to see George, err, I mean Jack out there seeing an old friend off. To bad they didn’t light one up for old times sake. I’d like to think they did behind the cameras but that was the thing about Easy Rider, written and directed by Hopper. It was all in front of the cameras like a big middle finger to the “man” a.k.a, the “establishment”!
Dennis Hopper was the embodiment of “coolness”. Even in his early days of Rebel without a Cause he was banging Natalie Wood off-camera. Now that’s cool! I wonder if she tasted like peaches too? (True Romance reference if you didn’t get that.) Cultivating his skills in the Actors’ Studio payed off in roles as a photojournalist in Apocalypse Now, Easy Rider, Hoosiers, and even in the last few years with his hit series “Crash”, a Stars original series, he always came across with that aura of coolness. Heck, I even thought he was cool in Red Rock West and Speed! Plus did you know he directed “Colors” too? He probably came up with the name Pac-Man for Sean Penn!
Well, it just so happens, and probably not by accident either, that Dennis Hopper stars in one of the greatest scenes in cinematic history, in my mind at least, in one of my all-time favorites, True Romance. Starring opposite Christoper Walken playing a Siccilian mafioso, who was also phenomenal in this scene I might add, Dennis Hopper, with the help of Tony Scott I’m sure, just nails it with the language and tone as he insults the Sicilian as he realizes he is facing certain death whether or not he gives up his son. In true Dennis Hopper fashion he verbably and intellectually sticks a middle finger in the Sicilian’s face, choosing not to give up his blood and savoring his Chesterfield before the inevitable.
His method acting was is a beautiful thing to watch. He had a thing about that middle finger. He was the counter-culture before their was a counter-culture. He was cooler then cool. Let’s hope he finds his “Freedom” now. R.I.P.
PHOTOJOURNALIST
"Do you know what the man is saying? Do you? This is dialectics.
It's very simple dialectics. One through nine, no maybes, no
supposes, no fractions -- you can't travel in space, you can't go out
into space, you know, without, like, you know, with fractions -- what
are you going to land on, one quarter, three-eighths -- what are you
going to do when you go from here to Venus or something -- that's
dialectic physics, OK? Dialectic logic is there's only love and hate, you
either love somebody or you hate them."
Kurtz throws a book angrily at him :
PHOTOJOURNALIST
"This is the way the fucking world ends! Look at this fucking shit
we're in, man! Not with a bang, with a whimper. And with a whimper,
I'm fucking splitting, jack!"
Photojournalist leaves :
