About the Book...

Believe it or not Dennis Hopper appeared in five films that defined the last five decades of the 20th century, five very different character personas, yet all somehow relate to the times they were made. The matinee idol of Rebel Without a Cause became the counter culture icon of Easy Rider. The burned out hippie in Apocalypse Now became the terrifying Frank Booth in Blue Velvet, and in Speed he became a seething action movie bad guy. Much has been written about Dennis Hopper’s rollercoaster life and influential movies, but not much as been written about Hopper’s art and cultural impact. Create or Die: The Lost Films of Dennis Hopper, explores this impact though the movies that slipped under the radar. The twisted sexual lust of Abel Farrara’s The Blackout, the quiet tenderness of Acts of Love, the ego and iconography of media personalities in The Night we Called it a Day and Search and Destroy, the excursions into science fiction with television movies Tycus and Space Truckers. The collision of character and actor in the openly raw Mad Dog Morgan and White Star, and the double standards of commercial films and artistic integrity in Out of Season and Boiling Point. Alongside critiques of these dismissed films are explorations into artistic freedom, method acting, politics, love and hate, drugs and drink, creation and death. Dennis Hopper’s life was a contradiction of art and commercialism, this book dares to venture where others fear to tread.