[THS] An Appreciation: Dennis Hopper was a man of his times

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http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-dennis-hopper-20100606,0,2612426,full.story

 An Appreciation: Dennis Hopper was a man of his times
The late actor-director-photographer, who often went to extremes in a tumultuous
era, became an unlikely elder statesman.
Dennis Hopper

Dennis Hopper in "The Last Movie"' (1971). (Unknown Photographer, Universal
Pictures / July 4, 2000)
By Reed Johnson, Los Angeles Times

June 6, 2010


Dennis Hopper knew how to talk to reporters, if my memory of a 1990 Toronto Film
Festival press conference is an accurate gauge.

It was early one gray morning, and he was jawing about "The Hot Spot," a neo-noir
thriller that he'd directed, starring Don Johnson and Virginia Madsen. The questions
were friendly and the banter jocular and relaxed in the packed hotel conference
room.
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Then someone asked Hopper about how he'd dealt over the years with the
premature death of his friend and former colleague James Dean. The men first acted
together in "Rebel Without a Cause" — Dean already a star in his early 20s, Hopper a
bit player in his teens — then reunited in "Giant" just before Dean was killed in a
road accident.

The room grew still as Hopper, without a trace of mawkishness or self-importance,
talked quietly about their relationship and what losing Dean had meant to him. Yes,
he said, ending his remarks with graceful understatement, that had been a tough
one.

Dean, the celluloid hero, was cut down before he could witness the full flowering of
the rebellious rock 'n' roll youth movement that he helped unleash upon the world.
Hopper and the rest of his pre-boomer generation were left or, one might say,
condemned to deal with the fallout of that cultural explosion, the manifestations of
which were alternately beautiful and toxic, peace-loving and violent, altruistic and
recklessly hedonistic. And although somewhat fainter than 40 years ago, they remain
with us today.

To his credit as an artist and occasional detriment as a human being, Hopper, who
died May 29 at 74, threw himself headlong into that hallucinogenic cultural
maelstrom. And although at times he came close to being swallowed up in his own
excesses, he kept himself together well enough to create several of the most
memorable cinematic characters of the last four decades as well as to direct, co-write
and costar in "Easy Rider," one of the key films of the 1960s counterculture along
with "Bonnie and Clyde," "Blow-up" and a few others.

After nearly running off the rails through drug abuse, he re-emerged with a
vengeance in the 1980s, and ended his career as one of the most prolific actors in
Hollywood history, with more than 200 TV and film roles to his credit.

In the tributes and career appraisals that have gushed forth, Hopper's reputation for
heroic debauchery and monumental self-indulgence has been exhaustively noted.
But that's hardly the most significant aspect of his life.

A classic '60s-'70s bad boy in the mode of Mick Jagger-Keith Richards, Hugh Hefner,
et al, Hopper went to extremes that some of his hard-charging but more level-
headed fellow leading men studiously avoided. Paul Newman, who performed with
Hopper in "Cool Hand Luke," liked to race fast cars, but he had the temperateness to
regard risk-taking as a hobby, not a lifestyle. Another rebel spirit, Jack Nicholson,
who was thrust into stardom by means of a secondary role in "Easy Rider," was
better than Hopper at keeping his private life sealed behind a seething, ironic
exterior.

Hopper, an accomplished photographer, exposed himself both on camera and off.
It's doubtful that any of his peers stared any deeper into the psychological abyss of
character study than he did in both small parts, such as a whacked-out photographer
haunting the Vietnam killing fields in Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now"
(1979), and large ones, like the brutal, nitrous oxide-fixated predator Frank Booth in
David Lynch's "Blue Velvet" (1986).

He paid a heavy personal and professional price for his immersions, and he had the
health problems and the busted marriages to prove it. Flaming youth nearly ended in
middle-age immolation.

But if Hopper was, for a time, one of the more visible artistic casualties of a
tumultuous era, he certainly wasn't the only one. Go read Stanley Booth's "The True
Adventures of the Rolling Stones," a chronicle of how the British rock band's 1969
U.S. tour started with Jagger tossing rose petals to the crowd and ended with a fan
being stabbed to death at Altamont.

Or watch "Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse," the extraordinary
documentary about the making of "Apocalypse Now." You'll probably have a sense of
why Coppola, after making a masterpiece about the defining U.S. crisis of the last
half-century, never made another great film.

The point isn't to invoke the sentimental cliché that borderline madness stokes the
making of great art. It's to recognize that when entire societies start losing their
bearings, as the United States did in the 1960s and periodically still does, artists are
compelled to respond with urgency and boldness.

Dennis Hopper did that. It's probable that Dean would've done the same.

reed.johnson at latimes.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/dennis-hopper-actor-and-iconoclast-has-died/

 May 29, 2010, 2:56 pm
Dennis Hopper, Actor and Iconoclast, Dies
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Dennis HopperEverett Collection Dennis Hopper, in the film “Easy Rider,” which he
directed, edited and starred in.

3:19 p.m. | Updated Dennis Hopper, whose portrayals of drug-addled, often
deranged misfits in the landmark films “Easy Rider,” “Apocalypse Now” and “Blue
Velvet” drew on his early out-of-control experiences as part of a new generation of
Hollywood rebel, died at his home in Venice, Calif., on Saturday. He was 74.

According to the Times obituary written by Edward Wyatt, Mr. Hopper died from
complications of prostate cancer. His death was first reported by Reuters.

Mr. Hopper, who said he stopped drinking and using drugs in the mid-1980s,
followed that change with a tireless phase of his career in which he claimed to have
turned down no parts. His credits include at least  six films released in 2008 and at
least 25 over the past 10 years.

Most recently, Mr. Hopper starred in the television series “Crash,” an adaptation of
the Oscar-winning film of the same title. Produced for the Starz cable channel, the
show had Mr. Hopper portraying a music producer unhinged by years of drug use.
During a promotional tour last fall for that series, he fell ill; shortly thereafter, he
began a new round of treatments for prostate cancer, which he said was first
diagnosed a decade ago.

Inverting a famous line of dialogue spoken by Peter Fonda in “Easy Rider,” Manohla
Dargis wrote of Mr. Hopper in The New York Times:

    Dennis Hopper — actor, filmmaker, photographer, art collector, world-class
burnout, first-rate survivor — never blew it. Unlike the villains and freaks he has
played over the decades — the psycho with the mommy complex in “Blue Velvet,”
the mad bomber with the grudge in “Speed” — he has made it through the good,
the bad and some spectacularly terrible times. He rode out the golden age of
Hollywood by roaring into a new movie era with “Easy Rider.” He hung out with
James Dean, played Elizabeth Taylor’s son, acted for Quentin Tarantino. He has been
rich and infamous, lost and found, the next big thing, the last man standing.





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