Anybody else felt like Bobby Dupea?

You're not stupid young fellow...modern-day existence has many feeling alienated and lost. In time you may find a touchstone, something that's real, and you won't feel so disconnected.

In "Five Easy Pieces" Bobby/Robert never gets there. In fact, at the conclusion of the film we're led to believe that he probably never will. Still, his childlike nature holds promise.

Good luck,

~pemory

i think there are a lot of people like Bobby Dupea. I was still in high school when the movie came out and it really didn't resonate with me. I found Dupea a rather detestible character especially at the end of the film. As time marched on, however, I felt myself indentifying with his character. Who hasn't felt out of place one time or another? Not a totally original theme in a movie, but this movie does it so well.

I really like your post.
You should change your handle.

Did the movie make you feel any better about yourself -- as finding a kindred spirit? Or maybe because, as you say, Robert had the same problems but to a greater degree?

It's odd that Five Easy Pieces was and is such a one-of-a-kind, yet clearly contains so much that's real. Hard to understand at times how such a movie was ever made, despite being brave enough to show so many uncomfortable truths about human relationships. Those truths may be wearying and sad, but the film itself is a triumph.

I have to respond to this. What you all have to say about this is fascinating!
I recently told a friend that the most connected I ever felt to the world and to the human race was when I was in my very early 20's and a pothead. I had friends over at my place all the time and we would talk for hours and smoke pot. This is going waaayyy back. Nearly 30 years ago.
I think of those times often lately because I feel so disconnected from everyone walking around talking to their Blue tooths and playing with their I-phones or whatever.
Strange times.

I feel joyfully connected to both Duprea and McCandless. I was there. Done that. Hitchhiked the west. Roadtripped through America. Lived on both coasts. I find it hard to connect to the fainthearted, lifestylist, herd-mentality, afraid-of-death, afraid-of-life, afraid-of-failure, humorless, conformist, anhedonic, acreative, imagine-less majority. Unfortunately, or maybe not, I conformed to a respectable profession, that is stultifying in the long term. I was shamed into it by my father, who was a good man and grew up in the depression. I constantly try to escape. Portland Songwriter Association (vice president), Portland Photographic Society (president), novel (1), screenplay (1), mountain climbing, back-country skiing, world travel, scientific research, a brush with Jesus, third-world surgery, trying to bring justice to the Khmer Rouge, examining the Shining Path, etc. But of all these efforts, the great path to joy has been reconnecting with a group of lifelong friends and doing trips into the beautiful, accessible, lightly-trod wildernesses that still exist in our national boundaries. They are all there and they exist every day in their shining stillness, both waiting and not waiting, indifferent to our brief trespass that only slightly alters their existence with our sound and our wanting and our rushing desire. We all wonder whether death will connect us to the other end of that great wanting that slithers opaquely through our dreams and the occasional, sudden, surprising, quiet waking moments. Whether it does nor not, we live and see what happens.

Grew up as a working class lad and never felt completely at home as I was more intelligent than many in my neighbourhood although I mixed in best I could. When I got into academia in my mid/late 20's I didn't feel completely at home there as my non middle-class accent and manner made me seem out of place and I was viewed with suspicion and an air of disrespect by many even when I became a lecturer and as such seemed to have to prove myself more than others which became tiresome. Eventually I left, but going back to a working class area and job meant I don't fit in here either, even more now then when I was growing up. Feel lost and bewildered by it all. Seem to fall between two stools but have never found my place.

(Must add that I'm not a SOB like Dupea comes across, but I'm generally as disillusioned and as pissed off as he is with everything.)

Wonderful comment there, I too was born in 1985, saw this movie yesterday and at the end of the movie I realized I'm exactly like Bobby. I do not believe we're outcast, I believe the world is seriously ill.

"This film was made in 1970 and I was born in 1985.
The film is still relevant today, while I am mostly not."

Possibly greatest post ever on IMDB.
+100

Go easy on yourself mate.


Don't you talk sense to me.

I could identify with Bobby more when I first saw the movie. I was 17 at the time and felt totally alienated from my family.

Also, I live in Washington State and know a number of artistic families, and the scenes on the island seem very familiar to me, although I must say that none of the people I knew were anywhere near as snobbish as the "pompous celibate" and her crew of phony intellectuals.

In my 20s I was married to a woman who was gorgeous but not all that bright. She is a lot smarter than Rayette but the gap between us was very similar. It was a cultural gap more than an intellectual one.

Fortunately I developed a good relationship with my family when I got older. In my case the problem was more me than them, but we're all a little bit crazy..


We report, you decide; but we decide what to report.

[deleted]

[deleted]

I dated a woman from the Philippines. She was pretty, neat and clean, and took her duties as a gf seriously, (we lived together for a bit). She had a lilt to her voice that showed she was not born in the US, but she had a modest job doing some sort of book-work for some department store. Sadly, in the back of my mind, I wanted a white gf with a sardonic side.
My gf was a bit mono-chromatic; she didn't crack jokes and tease, but she did enjoy chatting with me and knew when I was being funny. Eventually circumstances changed and I left her behind. She was very upset, but I didn't really think I loved her. Oddly enough, I heard she got married too long after, and the stooge picked some heavy-metal ballad as their wedding song. Nowadays I often wonder if I should have committed to her. I'm alone and she was a very disciplined young lady. With her body style, she might have gained weight as she aged, and I never really wanted to have kids, but it might have been nice to have a devoted companion over these past 30 years.

I'm not a woman much less Deanna Durbin, but the old-time glam-shot appeals to me.

How does it feel to have written one of the most spiteful, pointless, arrogant posts in the history of IMDB?

MY FAVE ONLINE FILM CRITIC =http://www.youtube.com/user/JeremyJahns?feature=watch

I disagree orgy. Most of the posters are baring their souls about how they feel like they didn't fit in. I sensed negligible hatred for the world, and I have to give them credit for being honest about their relationship to the world. I raise a glass to the lot of you. "Pompous celibate." Outstanding.