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Date Posted: 11:31:35 05/31/10 Mon
Author: Ned
Author Host/IP: 75.105.21.255
Subject: Re: RIP Dennis Hopper
In reply to: Bill 's message, "RIP Dennis Hopper" on 17:28:21 05/29/10 Sat

De mortibus nil nisi bonum and all that.... but....

In the first place, Dennis was almost ten years older than I am - and I'm at the very beginning of the "boom" (born only a few months after V-J day in '45) who were the heart and soul of the "counter-culture" generation of which I count myself a part.

At the time, I always saw these older folks - who had somehow missed the Beat generation - as trying to co-opt the real movement that what I understood as "counter-culture" represented.

When I was in San Francisco in '67 there were some 30-40-year-olds hanging around, and a few of them were genuine, but my impression was that most of them were just trying to get close to some teen-aged hippie-chicks. Some of them were pretty successful.

As an actor, I never saw Hopper as much of anything but a "screen personality," like Bela Lugosi or John Wayne in all of his "Western" or "Combat" roles. Hopper had an air of menace and out-of-control unpredictability that was used to good effect in films like Easy Rider and Blue Velvet, but they seemed more the active display of a persona than real "acting." If Hopper had a "softer side" I haven't seen it on screen...

He was used effectively and made a real contribution to a few films. I think behind the scenes he used his celebrity to help some real talents. I'm sure his friends will miss him, and I'm sorry to see him check out. I wish him RIP as well.

But it felt like much more of a sea-change - the melancholy aspect of the end of an era - when Lennon was shot, or when Dylan's music started turning up in the background of TV commercials...

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