Book Excerpt: Easy Riders, Raging Bulls

Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda in Easy Rider (1969).

I'm right in the middle of reading Peter Biskind's Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex, Drugs and Rock-'n-Roll Generation Saved Hollywood (1998).

Here are some interesting sound bites (so far) from Biskind's interviews.


"Jaws was devastating to making artistic, smaller films. They forgot how to do it. They're no longer interested." 
~ Peter Bogdanovich, director


"The cocaine problem in the United States is really because of me. There was no cocaine before Easy Rider on the street. After Easy Rider, it was everywhere."
~ Dennis Hopper, actor/director


"Popcorn pictures have always ruled. Why do people go see them? Why is the public so stupid? That's not my fault." 
~ George Lucas, writer/director


"There's a darkness in my soul, a profound darkness that is with me every waking moment."
~ William Friedkin, director (The Exorcist)


"In the trades I see, 'This picture will be helmed by veteran director Martin Scorsese.' It seems like only yesterday I was a 'new young filmmaker.'" 
~ Martin Scorsese, director/producer

"Star Wars was the film that ate the heart and soul of Hollywood. It created the big-budget comic book mentality." 
~ Paul Schrader, writer/director