Five Easy Pieces Five Easy Pieces Five Easy Pieces is a 1970 American drama film written by Carole Eastman (as Adrien Joyce) and Bob Rafelson, and directed by Rafelson. The film stars Jack Nicholson, with Karen Black, Susan Anspach, Ralph Waite, and Sally Struthers in supporting roles. The film tells the story of surly oil rig worker Bobby Dupea, whose rootless blue-collar existence belies his privileged youth as a piano prodigy. When Bobby learns that his father is dying, he goes home to see him, taking along his waitress girlfriend. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards and five Golden Globe Awards,
Easy Rider of the so-called "post-classical Hollywood" came to represent a counterculture generation increasingly disillusioned with its government as well as the government's effects on the world at large and the establishment in general. Although Jack Nicholson appears only as a supporting actor and in the last half of the film, the standout performance signaled his arrival as a movie star, along with his subsequent film "Five Easy Pieces" in which he had the lead role. Vice President Spiro Agnew criticized "Easy Rider", along with the band Jefferson Airplane, as examples of the permissiveness of the 1960s counterculture. The film's success, and