Coolly imparting character to highway rest stops and everyday people is a hallmark of great American road movies. In Bob Rafelson's 1970 Five Easy Pieces–the 40th anniversary of which will be celebrated with a run at Manhattan's Film Forum starting tomorrow–that fugitive spirit is met with hitchhikers and waitresses, rambling from diners to motels.

In his first starring role, Jack Nicholson plays Bobby Dupea, a hardened and callous roustabout who works on an oilrig in California. He treats his girlfriend, Rayette (Karen Black), like nothing more than a bad bowling partner, refusing her any tenderness or charm. Musing over a life she's imagined, Rayette listens to Tammy Wynette over and over with the tragic devotion of a teenager in love. As "Stand By Your Man" peaks in the background, Bobby, whose musical wunderkind is at first alluded to, halfheartedly drinks a beer and belittles her taste: "You play that thing one more time, I'm gonna melt it down into hair spay!"

Dupea's restless temper is both seeded in his past but also piqued by the landscape's slow and plaintive pace. At once burdened and indifferent toward his own musical genius, Bobby's distractions and subsequent new life offers little pleasure, and his friends–Elton, Stoney, Betty, Twinky–little attraction. Still, he remains perversely sharp as a malcontent. Unfulfilled and yet alive, he's ready to throw punches, sing songs, or abandon his car in the middle of traffic and jump onto a flatbed truck, merrily playing the piano on board. In that brief and wanton moment, Bobby Dupea is possessed by a revived energy as he bangs wildly on the piano keys. Around him cars honk and drivers yell.

But when news arrives of his father's declining health, the story's mood and manner shifts. On an island up the coast in Washington, Bobby's siblings and father live in isolation, nurturing their virtuoso talent. No more working-class America, no more cranky, metal machinery, dirt, dust, and hard hats, no more snap-button shirts, and trailer homes. Certainly no more Tammy Wynette. In black turtlenecks and tan suede blazers, even Bobby looks different. Conversation at the dinner table is quiet, courtly, and restrained, and class divide as well as other more intimate and familial tensions adopt the landscape's chilly and solemn climate.

At its center, the newly restored Five Easy Pieces recalls the autonomous immortality of the open road. With some cursory yet vital performances, the film, like its protagonist, offers a simple story whose only resolve is the need to keep moving: "Most of [my life] doesn't add up to much...things tend to get bad when I stay."

Five Easy Pieces opens at Film Forum February 26. Film Forum is located at 209 West Houston Street in New York.