The Travels of Bob Rafelson

Just as Jack Nicholson in $The King of Marvin Gardens$ left the safety and the dim light of the radio studio and laid himself open to the cold weather and winter light of Atlantic City, to experience the delusion of a dream, so did Bob Rafelson, from the very start of his career, lay himself open to the winds of change, to the delusions and utopias of the sixties. A select member of the most illustrious generation of American filmmakers of the sixties and seventies --together with Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Brian DePalma, Monty Helman, Terrence Malick and Peter Bogdanovich-- he infused new life into the American cinematic landscape by documenting the spirit of the counter-culture ($Head$, $Five Easy Pieces$, $The King of Marvin Gardens$), rejecting the stereotypes of the film studios.

Narrative ease, improvisation (in his earlier films), his personal journey and quest, a certain tone of sarcasm, film $noir$ mythology, the depiction of peculiar characters and a critical attitude towards America's unshakable institutions (e.g. the family): all these are ingredients of his directorial identity.
The man behind a pop music phenomenon (he created "The Monkees"), Bob Rafelson did not succumb to the power of the film studios. Independent from the outset, he founded BBS (which was to produce emblematic films, such as $Easy Rider$ and $The Last Picture Show$) and directed films which became seventies landmarks, such as $Five Easy Pieces$.

His career of 35 years is marked by countless divergences and long periods of silence. One of the people who accompanied him throughout this period was one of the most representative actors of his time: Jack Nicholson. In the collaboration between Rafelson and Nicholson in 5 films (and one screenplay), we witness one of the few such symbiotic relationships between an actor and a director in modern American film, matched only by that between DeNiro and Scorcese.

Responsible to a large degree for the cinematic persona of Nicholson as both an emblematic character of the counter-culture ($Five Easy Pieces$, $The King of Marvin Gardens$) and as a movie star ($The Postman Always Ring Twice$), Rafelson documented, through this working relationship, the passage of time and the changes in a man's life: from the youthful moodiness of $Five Easy Pieces$, to the hot-blooded sexual relationship in $The Postman Always Rings Twice$, to the dreams and passions of middle age in $Blood and Wine$.
As a filmmaker, Bob Rafelson traveled mainly between two poles. On the one hand there are his adaptations of $noir$ literature (such as $The Postman Always Rings Twice$ by James Cain, $Poodle Springs$ by Raymond Chandler, $The House on Turk Street$ by Dashiell Hammett), but also films like $Black Widow$ or $Blood and Wine$. In these films, which usually follow the typology of the crime drama genre, the weight is placed not so much on narrative tension, but rather on the psychology of the characters. As an illustration of the dark American soul or a criticism of the contiguous losses of the American dream, these films are modern interpretations of $noir$ mythology, focusing as they do on the delusions which spring from the American dream, on the moral motivations of the characters, on the greed and passions which trouble their souls, on the lust and on the wild, uncontrollable, animal sexuality which determines their actions.
On the other hand there are the films which are characterized by an intense personal element, even when they appear to obey to stereotypes (for example, $Stay Hungry$). Here, the heroes are full of contradictions and inner conflicts, forever chasing illusions. The premise on which Bob Rafelson's cinema evolved and within which these characters move, is defined as much by the dissatisfaction and restlessness which dominated American society in the late sixties, as by the troublesome and dysfunctional relationships between the main characters and their environment, whether in the familial or wider sense. These heroes are marked by a sense of despondency and an emotional void, which makes them reject their family and refuse to conform. Tormented by boredom and listlessness, they seek a way out ($Five Easy Pieces$, $The King of Marvin Gardens$, $Stay Hungry$). Their steps are dictated by a need to take flight, to go on the road, to willingly remove themselves from their family and social class, and to reject established values. In contrast to the classic westerns, where the heroes wander in search of a home and a family, Bob Rafelson's protagonists are tormented by wanderlust and a longing for open horizons. They reject pretense, convention, and the suffocating environment in which they live, seeking, instead, a real, genuine life. These are privileged, bourgeois characters, who eventually find a true, unaffected life and regain their vitality among the lower strata of society. Rejecting their social class, the heroes of Bob Rafelson's films are dreamers chasing after their personal chimeras ($Mountains of The Moon$), desperados in search of a better fortune, men on a journey. This may be either a literal or an inner journey ($The King of Marvin Gardens$), but in both cases it leaves an indelible mark on the hero. And if the end result is failure, that is of no importance. As in every journey, so in the films of Bob Rafelson what is important is not the destination but the experience of the journey itself: the stops along the way, the people one meets, the minor events that take place along an endless road.

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