It’s almost two years since the passing of one of cinema’s true wild men, Dennis Hopper. The actor, writer and director was a maverick titan of cinema, a man who starred in some of the most pictures of American cinema, from “Rebel Without A Cause” to “Blue Velvet,” while also writing and directing a film that arguably changed the movies forever, “Easy Rider,” while maintaining a personal life that was decidedly colorful (for full details, read Peter Biskind‘s modern classic “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls.”
The actor was born 76 years ago today, and to pay tribute, we’re republishing our look at the actor’s ten greatest roles, which we originally ran shortly after his passing. Everyone has a favorite Hopper role, but some of his best performances came away from the beaten track: hopefully you’ll find a little of both below. And let us know your own favorite turn from the actor in the comments section.
“Giant” (1956)
With a new mentor in James Dean, who he met on the set of Nicholas Ray‘s “Rebel Without A Cause,” and directed by the legendary George Stevens, in a cast that also included Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson, it’s hard to imagine how Hopper’s career might’ve ended up without the opportunity to learn his craft on the set of “Giant.” As he’s recounted in countless interviews, Hopper and Dean spent a lot of time together and Dean would advise and critique Hopper between the multitude of takes Stevens liked to get in the can. The Hopper we see in the film — playing the son of ranch magnate Bick Benedict (Hudson) — is a far cry from the wilder, more iconic roles he would later become famous for. But nonetheless, the dashingly handsome, clean cut youth of 18 who appears in the film fits wonderfully in the epic sprawl of Stevens’ soap opera about the changing values and shifting landscape of the great Texas outback.
“Easy Rider” (1969)
We all fade away, even if we want to go out in a burst of flames. Eventually, with the life of Dennis Hopper distant in the rear-view mirror, some generations will consider him a character actor who did a number of movies no one really recalls. But they’ll all remember his signature stamp, “Easy Rider,” which he co-wrote, directed and starred in. As a film, “Rider” is a trippy, dazed but altogether pessimistic piercing of the American hippie myth, a final word amongst final words in regards to the era’s counterculture, buoyed by Hopper’s tortured, self-loathing turn as a young man defeated by the fact that he simply can’t turn back. But as a document, “Easy Rider” will survive long after all of us, a testament to it’s fermenting of celluloid rage and defiance, combined with the stylistic flourishes that helped make a certain live-cannon style of moviemaking thrive during what would end up being the most exciting time for American filmmaking. Eventually, the storytelling of “Easy Rider” became forgotten by the likes of “Star Wars” and “Jaws” as we moved into films as a business first, second and last. In the end, perhaps Peter Fonda‘s laconic loner Wyatt was right — “We blew it.”
“The American Friend” (1977)
Long before there was “The Talented Mr. Ripley” — though after René Clément‘s 1960 “Purple Noon” — there was Wim Wenders‘ “The American Friend,” which was a loose adaptation of Patricia Highsmith‘s third novel in the Ripley series, “Ripley’s Game.” A moody, slow-burning neo-noir, the picture starred Hopper as career criminal Tom Ripley, now working in the field of forged art and Bruno Ganz as a terminally ill picture framer whom Ripley coerces into becoming an assassin. While more atmospheric than plot driven and Hopper doesn’t actually say that much, it’s the absence of dialogue, and emotion for that matter, that makes the actor look inward and implicitly project forward the idea of the quiet and soulless mind of a killer (and film snobs will appreciate the appearances by the then-grizzled Nicholas Ray and Samuel Fuller).
