James Dean died half a century ago yet Dennis Hopper still talks passionately about him. Dean was his mentor, he taught him rebellion. Hopper's resulting attitude had him blackballed from Hollywood, but he returned triumphantly having directed a little picture called "Easy Rider". It was a worldwide hit, broke down the doors of the movie citadel, and Hopper had a cool 10% of the gross.
Did he build on that success? It's Hopper we're talking about. He hit the bottle big time, went to live in New Mexico, visited Charles Manson, and made an intellectually bracing box office disaster of a western, "The Last Movie". Its failure had the champagne corks popping across town. Hopper drank more, did brilliant secondary roles in "Apocalypse Now" and Wim Wenders' "The American Friend", but he didn't surface again, sober, until the mid 80s. Was he scared that sober he'd be less creatively bold? Too right. What was one of his first sober films? "Blue Velvet". From that point he turned in a rogues gallery of nasties in films like "Speed" and "Waterworld". In the car home he tells me that he voted Reagan and Bush senior.
But how does a rebel end up a reactionary? He says that welfare is too vast in the US, that it was good that Bush was head of the CIA, that it's time for smaller Government. Shocking stuff from the man who made "Easy Rider", but then in going sober he had to reject his old self. Asked about the car advert where he plays a yuppie skitting "Easy Rider", he says "I loved that. I'm not that biker any more. I don't dress like that, my hair isn't long". Which all is true, but if a film is about an idea and its maker says that the idea is no longer true, where does that leave the audience? Another question for Dennis Hopper.
You can catch Dennis Hopper on Scene by Scene on Monday 20th August, 大象传媒2, 11.30pm.
Read more about Dennis Hopper and what Kim Newman thinks about Hollywood's meanest baddies.
