This clip from Easy Rider (1969) opens with a long shot that shows four characters: the two male protagonists and the two prostitutes they have spent the previous night with. The camera looks down at the characters from a high angle. This, along with their position sat close to and, later in the sequence, on the ground suggests that they are low in social status because it creates the effect that the audience is looking down on them. The setting also tells the audience that these characters are low status as the background is part of a dilapidated building. The way these characters are presented to the audience is a reflection of how they are viewed in society. As drug users and part of the 1960s counter culture, they are looked down upon by the establishment - an idea that is best exemplified by the Bible reading lady appearing in a low angle shot as she towers over the audience and is made to seem larger than life.
The sequences showing their drug use gives way to a montage which rapidly cuts between many different types of shots including a low angle, vertical panning shot of the run-down building, a zoomed in shot of a sunset, a low angle shot of a young woman reading from the bible (who can be heard throughout the montage), shots of various Christian imagery such as crucifixes and statues, and brief shots of the hippie characters getting high and undressing. This vast array of different shot types and the fast paced cuts are used to disorientate the audience and therefore mimic the experiences of the characters after taking LSD, enabling the audience to empathise with them while the Christian imagery and Bible reading represent the establishment which would judge them for such an act.
As well as the reading from the Bible, sound is used to heighten the intensity of the sequence and create a disorientating experience for the audience. This is primarily achieved with the inclusion of a repetitive and unpleasant industrial clanging coming from somewhere off screen. The sounds of industry and machinery is heavily juxtaposed with the intimacy of the characters actions and it continues to be heard alongside the woman reading the Bible and the barely audible dialogue of the characters which further adds to the effect of disorientation. Furthermore, the way the characters' dialogue during their trip is in the background and faded compared to the other sources of sound disconnects them from the audience just as they are disconnected from reality by the drugs to some extent.
Lighting is used in this sequence to create feelings of disorientation and uneasiness, conveying the feelings of the characters who are having a bad LSD trip. The sun takes the role of a key light and is angled above and to the right which creates distinct shadows in the bottom left half of the frame, giving the opening shot of the sequence high contrast. The shadowy, high contrast shot where the characters initially take the LSD is itself contrasted with high exposure shots later in the montage like the shots of the sky from the cemetery and of the characters during their acid trip, some including lens flare so that the sun remains a continued theme and the primary source of lighting. Such juxtaposition between these examples of high key lighting and the high contrast lighting of the opening shot creates conflict in the lighting of the sequence as a whole. This combines with the fast cuts to add to the disorientation effect and forces the audience to empathise with the unease of the characters.
Each aspect of this sequence seems to ultimately serve the goal of coercing the audience into empathising with the characters' negative experiences surrounding their bad acid trip. This does not, however, vilify the drug or the people using it as the establishment of the US in the 1960s did. Instead, the authenticity brings the audience member closer to the pariah characters and encourages a second look at the use of drugs, a perception different from the one presented by establishments of authority like the government and the church.
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