Posted by
Bill Crawford on Sunday, May 30, 2010 10:14:07 PM
Dennis Hopper, iconoclast and a true rebel in the sometimes still-too-uptight Hollywood world, kicked the bucket this week.
In the 1960's, the California film world was going through a shakeout, where the last vestiges of the studio managed industry were drying up and the independents were starting to be the new order. When Hopper and Pete Fonda whipped up "Easy Rider" and it managed to find an audience, it ripped the floor out from underneath what the conventional wisdom said was needed to get a film past production and into theater distribution.
Dennis, like Jack Nicholson, seemed to play a series of characters who were extentions of their natural personality. Like Nicholson, he only managed to make a career out of that because there was a fountain of on-camera talent to make that happen.
There was a film he made in the early '90's called "True Romance", where he played the father of a character that a crazy mafia guy (Chris Walken, natch) was looking for. Walken was trying to find out where Hopper's son was, and told him that he was going to die slowly if he didn't start talking. There was a moment where Hopper decided that he wasn't telling and his life was now over, and when you play the scene back, you can see the subtle but effective mannerisms that convey this- the work of a master. Anyway, he bums a Chesterfield off of Walken and starts a history lecture about how Sicilians were taken over and inbred with African blood by invading hordes centuries ago, and finishes by calling him an eggplant (the worst thing you can call an Italian). Walken admires the bravado and laughs, while he borrows a pistol and empties the clip into Dennis. By the way, the movie got even crazier after that, you should check it out if you haven't seen it. (The cameo of Brad Pitt as a total stoner is priceless).
I will miss him, he was a real character, and totally without pretention. Godspeed to Dennis and his family.