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A Chat About Lemon Grove Kid Dennis Hopper
Hopper was a hard guy to feel much compassion for. The roles I saw him in - Rebel, Easy Rider, Apocalypse Now, Blue Velvet, et alia - he was, as noted in the text, either lame or psychotic. His off-camera behavior during and after Easy Rider (the movie which meant most to me as a biker) was unforgiveable. His attempts to claim all the glory for himself and his reluctance to acknowledge his coconspirators in the creation of that film make him untrustworthy, at best. His character in the film - antsy, speedy, judgmental AF - made him just the kind of guy I try to avoid. He had the better bike, but he made for a piss-poor riding companion. The second movie which meant most to me was Apocalypse Now, with Hopper as the (apparently drug-crazed) photographer and sycophant to Brando’s Colonel. There was a man ***born*** to get punched out, or get his ticket punched. I won’t go into chapter and verse about each film, but I will note that some friends have never forgiven me for taking them to see Blue Velvet. I trusted the review I read, and my friends never trusted me to pick another movie. In closing I’ll mention one final affront: after posing as an iconoclast circa Easy Rider and The Last Movie, Hopper spent the second half of his life as a rabid Reaganite Republican. Others may see it differently, but to me Hopper’s conversion to conservative Republican represents, if nothing else, a betrayal of the zeitgeist he rode to fame.— November 1, 2021 10:59 p.m.