the two jacks

1970 OUT 16 NOVEMBER BD EXTRAS Commentary, Documentaries, Essay

Jack Nicholson was already well into his thirties, an unsung veteran of a decade’s standing, when he secured his first Oscar nomination (for 1969’s Easy Rider). Nicholson parlayed this potent mix of bittersweet experience and sudden fame into Bobby Dupea, the first classic leading role in his astonishing 1970s run.

The story is simplicity itself: a character study about a musical prodigy slumming it as an oil rigger, whose discontent with his blue-collar life gets a twist when he has to return home to face his posh, dysfunctional family.

Writer/director (and is poles apart from their lysergic, satirical pop. With a novelistic refusal to kowtow to narrative, Rafelson tells the story with punchy but resonant symbolism, contrasting landscapes (verdant Washington, parched Texas), music (Chopin vs. Tammy Wynette) and people (the snobbish Dupeas are balanced by a never-better Karen Black as Bobby’s working-class lover).