Dennis Hopper (1936-2010)
Friday, June 4, 2010 at 10:18AM "Now it's dark"
It was only fitting that I first saw news of Dennis Hopper's death from the Fox ticker while I channel-surfed in a Chicago hotel room last week. After all, the lunatic son-of-a-bitch had gone full-bore insane many years back and declared himself a Republican. A political about-face that stunned and angered quite a few people who had believed that Hopper was one of the few remaining bad boy rebels of Hollywood; bordering on Manson crazy, living the lifestyle of Caligula's horse and defiantly giving the finger to all things decent and established. But, Swee' Jeebus! Conservatism?! There's only so much cravenness and depravity one can take.
Along with film - disappointing people and/or pissing them off seemed to be his calling. I doubt that anyone familiar with him or his work had not, at least one time, felt betrayed or shat upon by his continual fuckups or overwhelming ego.
Which is what makes for a great actor and counterculture icon. He had been at it for a long time.
The formative experiences of his early career came while working with James Dean on Rebel Without a Cause and Giant. A fleeting friendship which was the best and worst thing to ever happen to him. Dean introduced him to the Stanislavski/Strasberg school of acting and Hopper took to it like a drug. Lacking Dean's aloofness and isolationist work habits however, Hopper used the style (and his newfound sense of hipness and superiority) as a truncheon upon the heads of his directors, co-workers and the antiquated operations of the studio system. He was labeled as a difficult and temperamental hire, spending the remainder of his early career as second-fiddle cowpokes, ranch hands and gunslingers on both TV and film. Only the eerie Night Tide stands out from this period as a precursor to the divergent style he would later embrace and the "outsider" status he coveted.
His persistence, talent, experimentation with narcotics and the shifting tastes of late '60s popular culture seemed to fuse together (as they did for many artists) at this time. Roger Corman's 1967 cutting-edge (now laughably nostalgic) The Trip set the stage for Hopper (he worked with Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson on the film) to channel all his anger and hallucinatory inspiration toward the suits of Hollywood and Nixonian America with his first directorial effort in 1969 - the bible of hippie rebel angst and existentialism - Easy Rider. The power of that movie on the climate of filmmaking and society itself cannot be overestimated. It was the powder keg explosion to a fuse that had been lit years before. It dealt the killing blow to the wounded studio system, gave validity to independent production, captured the bourgeoning youth market, instituted the obligatory rock soundtrack and ushered in the second golden age of the American cinema. It made Hopper an instant counterculture hero, a rich man and an artist who could, for the time being, call his own shots.
It would be his undoing for over 15 years.
His next project, the presciently titled The Last Movie, was straight out of the "Unchained Egomaniacal Artist" vein. It was the harbinger of the creative excesses unwisely granted to directorial wunderkinds throughout the '70s - ending in such financial disasters as Friedkin's Sorcerer, Cimino's Heaven's Gate and pretty much anything Peter Bogdanovich did after Paper Moon. The Last Movie (yes, I have regrettably seen it) is one of the most aimless, indulgent, dreary and unwatchable films ever to be made. It is essentially an unfinished piece masquerading as a challenging vision. Even in that it fails. I would blame the mountains of Peruvian flake cocaine that the cast and crew were consuming while filming but that would give a bad name to Peruvian flake cocaine. The Last Movie looks as if it was shot by people tanked on cough medicine and Sterno.
The painfully bleak years followed. Hopper flitted about Europe and the outskirts of Hollywood in a self-imposed stupor of drugs and alcohol. The stink-eyes he had given friends, co-workers and backers on his way up now came crashing back to haunt him. He worked sparingly for the rest of the 70s, mostly abroad, but the old spark could be seen in his innerving performance in Tracks (1977), a uniquely sedate turn in Wim Wender's masterful The American Friend and as the babbling, drug-addled photographer in Apocalypse Now; a role everyone assumed was not much of a stretch. An assumption proven correct by Eleanor Coppola's behind-the-scenes documentary footage used in Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse.
The '80s proved more promising as Hopper got back behind the camera for the disturbingly good Out of the Blue (1980), a story of lives ruined by alcoholism and despair - a none-too-subtle allegory for the director/star's own trials.
Coppola used him effectively again as the alky father in Rumble Fish (1983) but it was in 1986 when Dennis (and all hell) broke loose. Sober (Ugh!), Republican (Yaagh!) and channeling the demons of his past (Yes!), he had one of the greatest years and outpouring of creativity of any film actor in history.
His performance as the one-legged, weed-dealing Feck in River's Edge was every bit up to the emotive strangeness that Crispin Glover brought to the film. It was like watching a paternal madman proudly pass on his crazy gene to the next generation's weirdo.
Then came his brilliantly hammy, Bible spewing lawman in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2; a tongue-in-cheek follow-up to the horrific original where Hopper was keenly and clearly in on the joke. "I'm the Lord of the Harvest", he warns in between screaming, yelling and chain-sawing everything in sight, "I'm bringing it all down, Lord!"
On the more serious side, his Oscar nominated role as "Shooter" (another alky father part) in Hoosiers was appropriately sentimental and wrenching in a film that often teetered toward mawkishness but, like Hopper's performance, never fell into outright bathos.
Then came Frank Booth.
There wasn't a soul on this planet ready for him. For me, there has never been another screen persona that elicited such simultaneous feelings of titillation and dread. It was like idolizing your own murderer. I remember sitting there in the dark of that theater (as an inured, film-weary critic no less), hearing the first hissing noises from that amyl nitrite tank and realizing I had no idea what that respiratory-masked monster was going to do next. That's an absolutely shocking revelation for someone who, up to that point, quite literally felt they had seen it all at the movies. Frank jarred me out of my cinematic complacency and remains, to this day, my all time favorite screen character. And Blue Velvet is always my fall back answer to the oft asked question of what is my favorite film.
Hopper's resurgence that year led him back onto the path of Hollywood legitimacy for good or ill. While given the opportunity to direct again (Colors, The Hot Spot) and offered a whole slew of new villainous roles (Red Rock West, Speed, Waterworld, Super Mario Brothers) he never really recaptured the magic of 1986 and became more and more of a caricature of the intensity he unleashed that glorious film year.
It was the reason that I could offer no tears or inconsolable wailing upon news of his death. Dennis Hopper had been dead to me since about 1993, shortly after his brief bit of brilliance in True Romance. The Republicanism and support of GW Bush did not help his cause either.
Simone entered the hotel room, the same grim look on her face as the day she told me Hunter S. had blown his brains out, and asked, "Did you hear Dennis Hopper died?"
"Yeah", I muttered.
"I'm sorry, Babe. I know you were a big fan. Can I get you anything?"
"Shut up! It's 'Daddy' you shit-head. Where's my bourbon? Can't you fucking remember anything?!"
Reader Comments (2)
My deepest gratitude to you, dear friend, for accepting the burdensome task of becoming my cinematic Sherpa and introducing me to Frank Booth and the parallel universe of David Lynch’s mind. You’ve both given this neighbor one fuck of a joyride and I’ll remember you always for that. Believe me, that sentiment comes straight from my heart, fucker! Now if you’ll excuse me, Daddy wants to fuck!
You are one suave fuck, G.O.T.!