Two Horses

In the 1969 film Easy Rider, directed by Dennis Hopper, we come across the ideas of the past and present twisting ideas of the past, present and future and how it relates to the America dream. Within this film the ideas that the past nostalgia is prevented by the move towards the future are explored as Captain America and Billy the Kid travel from west to east.

At 12:30 in the film Billy and Captain America stop at a rancher's house to fix one of their motorcycles. Upon approaching, though they are welcomed, they scare the rancher's horse with the noise. Yet the two objects share more in common than a first glance would have on realize.

Within the narrative structure of this film lies a nostalgic yearning and grasp for the frontier dream; that is a movement from the clutter of city life to a more open space of opportunity and free range. While Captain America and Billy the Kid's movements take them from this freedom in the west to the more urban and social constricted east, they carry with them the symbols of this frontier movement in their motorcycles.

Not only is the vehicle shaped like a horse, as compared to the more compact car, its maintenance is very similar. As mirrored in the shot at 13:26 where the two objects share a frame, it takes a collective to hold and maintain the object. The horses show, much like a tire, must be removed and repaired as it is held. Its ranchers hold the objects still.

Both the horse and the motorcycles are the vehicles that propel one towards the west. Yet they represent the tension within the film. The horse is scared of the motorcycle; flesh scared by machine. In many ways it foreshadows much of the film's later moments upon entering the urban south. For as much as the motorcycle represents the idea of freedom and the frontier wildness and openness it is still a being of metal and urban origins. Its a piece of the future that finds itself wrapped up within the idea of looking to the past much like Captain America is.

It is of utmost importance we remember the line “can you turn it off, the noise is scaring my horse” uttered by the rancher. Captain America favors his lifestyle; one of being a free commune in the open west without the interference of society. While he does not critique his religion he can not stay here. Billy and Captain America, whether they know it or not, is the noise on a new horse. They can not achieve this lifestyle or dream not because they have already blown it with the pusher drug money but because they are using a metal, eastern made horse. They have become implicated by the very objects they ride.

The parallels represent much of the film's themes of a frontier aspect and freedom. While mirroring they become a twisted sense. Yes Billy and Captain America are yearning for a frontier, or at least Captain America is, but they can not achieve it. The pusher money as much as the metal horse has corrupted them in a way they must only propel backwards into the twisted, urban pull that will lead them only to ruin.