PERFECT CINEMA

In the oft-cited campfire scene near the end, Wyatt tells Billy, “We blew it.” That line has been taken as an indictment of the American counterculture, which, like so many protean revolutionary movements, started self-destructing once it gained enough power and prominence to effect real change. One can read it that way. But the line strikes me also as a more personal sort of confession, an admission that they have ultimately succumbed and bought into their own outlaw version of the capitalist rat race—the idea that a man is not a true success unless he has accumulated enough money to stop working and take it easy. 

According to Marshall, the 23-year-old Roberts would sometimes show up to the set a bit sleepy after a night of partying. “I said, ‘Richard, you gotta wake her up a little, so when she reaches for the box, slam it.’ It was a soft box. I would never hurt her.”

It wasn’t until the last moment of editing that they decided to use the scene. “We put it in… and it became like the trademark of the movie,” said Marshall.