Peter Fonda making appearances in Naperville, Woodridge
Peter Fonda used to get really, really, really mad when someone asked him if he smoked real marijuana during his scenes in the 1969 counterculture classic "Easy Rider."
"I used to really get P.O.-ed," Fonda said from his California home. "That was the question I used to get really mad at. Does it matter if that was vodka or water in the glass? I'd get angry!
"Until one fellow, who was a professor in communications, and he said, 'Peter, the reason they're asking you this, as far as I can tell, is that if that was real marijuana you were smoking, then all emotion invested in that movie was real, and they need to know that.'
"That just floored me. So, I stopped being upset about that question. They'd ask, and I'd say, 'Of course it was!' and we'd move on to the next question."
Fonda, now 69, will introduce screenings of his generational, cinematic touchstone today at 7 and 9 p.m. at the Hollywood Blvd. Cinema, 1001 W. 75th St., Woodridge, and again on Sunday at 4, 6 and 8 p.m. Fonda will also introduce his movie Saturday at 4, 6, 8 and 10 p.m. at the Hollywood Palms Cinema, 352 S. Route 59, Naperville.
"Easy Rider" stars Fonda and Dennis Hopper as a couple of motorcycling wanderers who go looking for the real America. What they find is a nation of hatred and division far from the land of the free and the home of the brave. The ending is a stunning moment in cinema history.
"When I wrote the movie, that was the first thing I wrote," Fonda said, "I was in Toronto in 1967 when I came up in four hours with that story. I thought that last campfire scene would be a doozy. (As an actor) I took on Gary Cooper's stance: If you know what you're doing, you don't need to act."
Fonda plays Wyatt, who goes by "Captain America." He's the new cowboy, as evidenced by a scene in which he changes a tire on his bike while, in the same frame, we see a man put new shoes on his horse.
Is "Easy Rider" still relevant after all these years?
"Look out the window and tell me that we haven't blown it," Fonda said. "We're still fighting religious wars. We're still full of bigotry and racism. We're full of hate and division. What have we learned? Nothing. It's been 40 years!"
Fonda turns the big 7-0 next month, and he refuses to be called "old."
"Never use the world old," he said. "Older works. Older is qualitative. Old is too definitive. We've been doing older since we were born. So if you ask, how did you get this much older, I'd say, luck - and looking in both directions when coming upon an intersection on a motorcycle."
Fonda fans know the story of how the actor, just before he turned 11, accidentally shot himself in the chest with a pistol while skeet shooting. The bullet missed his heart only because the muscle contracted at exactly the moment the bullet passed by. His life was saved in a split-second of lucky timing.
Does Fonda have any insights on why we're here on the planet?
"Yeah, I have thought about it an awful lot, Dann," Fonda said. "I really have. Here's my take on it: Never ask that question again. Because you're going to waste your time trying to figure out why we're here. You can go to philosophical books and theological books to find out what others think about why we're here.
"The thing is, here we are. The question is 'How do we do this?' 'What do we do?' These are the questions that count. If you want the meaning of life, watch Monty Python."
Ford's scary scarDear Dann: The story Harrison Ford gave you about how he got his scar sounds a lot like the plot of "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp." - Jeff SchogolDear Jeff: Could be, although the main character, Major Wynne-Candy, covered his up with a mustache. How would Ford look with a goatee?Amazingly, that interview with Ford spread over the Internet and invited all kinds of caustic comments from readers. Only one seemed to get what the story was really about: the liberating power of forgiveness. Maybe if people attended more Sunday school? - DannReal poster kidsIt's about time that someone put together a documentary on rock music poster art, and Merle Becker does it in the informative, albeit conventional "American Artifact: The Rise of American Rock Poster Art."Becker takes to the road to interview both unsung and sung artists whose iconic imagery in rock concert advertising defined its era and, like other pop art forms, influenced other artists. Becker acknowledges more than 30 poster artists, but concentrates on the legendary "Big 5:" Rick Griffin, Stanley Mouse, Alton Kelley, Victor Moscoso and Wes Wilson, whose psychedelic poster art for concerts and album covers (e.g. the Grateful Dead and Jimi Hendrix) are amazing works from a historical as well as artistic perspective.Becker whisks us through the 1960s and the earliest forms of poster art - the block press - up through telephone pole art, through the Xerox flier period of the 1980s and into the silk-screen era.It's a gotta-see kind of movie for rock and pop art lovers, even though Becker makes an amateur journalist's mistake of assuming that audiences want to know about her struggles to make the doc before she actually shows it to us."American Artifact" plays at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State St., Chicago. Becker will be there in person with a panel of artists (Jay Ryan, Mat Daly, Steven Ryan and Jim Pollock) for a QA. General admission costs $10. Go to siskelfilmcenter.org. Not rated. 88 minutes.False20001777As he prepares to turn 70, Peter Fonda says he prefers the term "older" to the harsher "old."Associated PressFalse