For years I thought of him as this unhinged character actor, which he was, but it wasn't until recently that I realised he had some sort of vision too, a method to the madness.
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls is packed with appalling anecdotes about him beating women, hammering drugs, discharging firearms, neglecting his kids, and terrorising more or less anyone unfortunate enough to run into him, but it also sketches an outline of someone who seemed genuinely interested in pushing the medium into new territory; Easy Rider itself, I wasn't actually that into, but it's clearly a landmark and watershed moment.
The other night I started watching The Last Movie and that one was strange even by his standards.
"Bergman is the greatest. He got it all together, man . . . We think the Indians are primitive because they believe that hairy men come out of the mountains at night and carry off stragglers, but real people came out of hills around L.A. and murdered Sharon Tate . . . I see areas of light and shade first of all and color as an afterthought. Light is my obsession. I feel it as an elemental source of power, like a kind of cosmic coal. It makes things grow, it makes things die. It can turn into anything - a plant, an idea. Movies are made of light. Just think of the power of light to transform itself into everything we are and can imagine!"
Dennis Hopper, LIFE (19 Jun 1970)
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls is packed with appalling anecdotes about him beating women, hammering drugs, discharging firearms, neglecting his kids, and terrorising more or less anyone unfortunate enough to run into him, but it also sketches an outline of someone who seemed genuinely interested in pushing the medium into new territory; Easy Rider itself, I wasn't actually that into, but it's clearly a landmark and watershed moment.
The other night I started watching The Last Movie and that one was strange even by his standards.
"Bergman is the greatest. He got it all together, man . . . We think the Indians are primitive because they believe that hairy men come out of the mountains at night and carry off stragglers, but real people came out of hills around L.A. and murdered Sharon Tate . . . I see areas of light and shade first of all and color as an afterthought. Light is my obsession. I feel it as an elemental source of power, like a kind of cosmic coal. It makes things grow, it makes things die. It can turn into anything - a plant, an idea. Movies are made of light. Just think of the power of light to transform itself into everything we are and can imagine!"
Dennis Hopper, LIFE (19 Jun 1970)
