"Easy Rider" opened in New York City in July, 1969 on the same weekend as the Woodstock Festival in upstate New York. The story of how the movie got made -- the infighting, the anarchy, the drug-induced excess! -- is as interesting as the movie itself. Dennis Hopper's artistic vision, the director's cut he (finally) delivered, was over 4 hours long. The producers pruned it down to a commercially viable 95 minutes. At the time, the movie was seen by many as a declaration of guerilla war by the counterculture that would topple the big, bad studio system. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. And the generation that dreamed of touring America in a teardrop chopper is now doing it in RV motorhomes. Still, the movie is an important cultural artifact, a snapshot of the zeitgeist of the counterculture.