Following on the heels of East of Eden, the Brattle's showing this week is the second in the trilogy of James Dean's acting epics, Rebel Without a Cause*. For two hours of fine acting, social criticism interwoven with pathos and sentimental memories of adolescence. Meanwhile, Jim Stark has managed to make two friends for his cause, Plato (Sal Mineo) and Judy (Natalie Wood). That night the troops assemble on a bluff for a "chickie run." "Rebel Without A Cause" Movie Trailer Conclusion The purpose of the movie, Rebel Without a Cause, was to show more reality than the everyone-lives-happily-ever-after ending. He makes every attempt to adjust to his new environment, but there is an insurmountable obstacle in the form of the local ruling class, a group of unsavory types who just can't wait to become mature, full-grown gangsters and begin practicing the arts early. �x.���S��t��������#� �� Producer: David Weisbart. Leo Braudy, ‘“No Body’s Perfect”: Method Acting and 50s Culture’, Michigan Quarterly Review, Vol. (Stark has a paranoic aversion to being called "chicken") But merely proving himself in this daytime version of kicks is not enough; society demands more of him. The film’s conflicts, that is, are very much worked out and suggested on the stylistic level. Sloan Wilson, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1955. 0 In doing so, it anticipated the larger cultural revolution that was to rock society and Hollywood cinema in the 60s. y Jay arr “The A List: The National Society of Film ritics’ 100 Essential Films,” 2002 From the opening scene at the police station, Jim is drawn in two different directions: Judy and Plato. By: Logan Arey, creator of Winding Expressions . Riesman’s work was part of a larger interest in – and anxiety about – how the post-war suburban economy affected especially male psyches. The family scene following the chickie run is a great example of high-pitched acting at its best. [Country: USA. The British Board of Film Censors (BBFC), which had banned both The Wild One and Blackboard Jungle, ordered cuts in Rebel without a Cause and limited its exhibition to those over 15 years old (Simmons 1995). I chose to watch it because, honestly, I’ve never seen a James Dean film and I felt like I needed to, and I was very amuse d by Dean’s acting ability. In this context, Rebel without a Cause becomes a film about ambiguous gender identity, a film that can be read in lesbian terms, with Jim in the role of the butch and Judy in the role of the femme. Rebel without a Cause is remarkable for how it mobilises cinematic style to emphasise and draw out the instability of gender and social conventions. For two hours of fine acting, social criticism interwoven with pathos and sentimental memories of adolescence, Rebel Without a Cause is a movie to be seen by everyone. Another memorable scene occurs later in the film, when Ray films a conflict between Jim and his parents on the stairs in their suburban home, making use of the wide frame, the mise en scène (particularly the difference in height due to the stairs) as well as lighting. The tensions and contradictions that caused censorship concern were made visible on the level of acting – specifically James Dean’s method acting – which exemplified ‘a daily psychic tug of war between personal identity and social identity, or, … individualism and conformity, alienation and patriotism’ (Braudy, 1996: 193). After having seen his father wearing a flowery apron over his grey-flannel suit, Jim becomes increasingly disillusioned about the possibility of getting help from his father, and assertively kicks in his mother’s portrait when he storms out of the house after an argument in a later scene. Production Company: Warner Bros. Pictures. ‘It’s just the age’, Judy’s mother says; ‘the atomic age’, Judy’s little brother exclaims and shoots his toy rifle at the dinner table. The plot of the movie largely depends upon the tragedy of misunderstanding; Jim Stark's parents misunderstand him; the same is true for Judy; Plato tries to forget his parents and adopts Jim as his father-image ("Why couldn't you have been my Dad? Subscribe to our email newsletter. Its ascendancy coincided with the rise of rebellious new male stars – Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando, James Dean (Braudy 1996: 191–204). Dean’s ambivalent sexuality – he appears to have had relationships with both men and women – also facilitates such a reading through extratexual knowledge about the film’s star. Going back to the Group Theatre in New York City in the 1930s, and developed by Lee Strasberg at the Actor’s Studio in the 1940s and 1950s, Method acting was an ‘art based on the armature of the body’, producing ‘models of being’ and ‘models of social behaviour in postwar America’ (Braudy 1996: 196, 195). %PDF-1.5 %���� Natalie Wood provides the love interest. Thomas Doherty, Teenagers and Teenpics: The Juvenilization of American Movies in the 1950s, revised and expanded edition, Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 2002. Moreover, Jim’s family is torn by gender conflicts, many of which centre on the father’s emasculation. �x.�b�h`�h ��K@Z�E�"aB�L,�X��B?��2��b�`1��[����ě���&��Z-�}��k9�4#�=7��f�ܜe�b.��!|�>�*>�c�Q�D� VF� 2, pp. On his first day at school, Jim's class pays a visit to a planetarium, which the gang decides to make the scene for a little action. h��]�]�q��ʾt�g��'����:�ƺ��[�,�������,ى��Uqp��&�H��p>���^�K:�����%աo��庚��.��Dߥ��(�Gʗ��HE�^U�c��A{-��.�]��5�k��P}�E}����!��K-Ys�@iRj�L=�1Tb=3/�_�?c�4k�sE=fg�R]Z��������~u��"�g���W���=��~���珟����>~�앚��fT���=��9݁.O�>~y=?�@?��ݿ?�ͣ�w=���Ͼ����z��O_=zu��Kr��x����&z����^=y����~s�Փ��^|�ރ�Ͽ���ݧ��ۧ�ߨ�r��/���h�݃?~���ǯ�����>z����|�u4=��n�g���飯^j�~�?|�����(nc�8�������ߐ����݃?z��_��G��>����S�����|�쫧����׏�kJ���O_���Z^P�Y؋'߾z���{�Z�\����,�,hc�i\����r�z���y^�g�W[�^�YՐ�Y�5�|�y-i�]#����Z����ڥ�~�v�=�S�q.u��\���t|�[C�|�ۯs�8��Y�W�*���ۥj�<3e}�k]�̫_ˡ�k]۬g9h_gI�:-�:���;Y��J��{�.��e��Z�j�ѹ6�+֯M����ٴ3�����@��V�Aꄐ��M���]M�)����qe�/��W�T� '����{����'?��x�g�n���������}{w;Pw?W���m޳p�O���+XS��6}�Y�>����"?Uz׺��=~���֗��r(�����^��d��g����u���8|����W��^�x��%E�Lx-)�1���?M���`[P}���՗_�D�;�IH�y�S�H�ؽ��&������%���_�K��0;��*�bUz �l;uf�%�.�_:�rI?���_�{e\$�. Rebel Without a Cause An alienated teenager tries to ... During the planetarium show, the lecturer remarks about man's insignificance in the vast universe and presents a light show demonstrating the end of the world. 35, No. 56–63. As a film that addressed both social problems and a teenage audience, Rebel without a Cause can be placed within a larger group of widely diverging films, ranging from George Lucas’ American Graffiti (1973), to the teen comedies of John Hughes, and the more politically charged Boys Don’t Cry (Kimberly Peirce, 1999), based on the actual murder of a transgender man in Nebraska. Of course, a queer reading of Rebel without a Cause has become easier in subsequent decades, not least because in 1955 homosexuality was illegal, classified as a mental disease, so that lesbians made up part of the incarcerated or institutionalised youth (Cartier 2003: 447). "); and, as usual, the police manage to misunderstand everyone. Juvenile delinquency especially was a hotly debated topic – The Saturday Evening Post had run a series on the subject under the title ‘The Shame of America’ (Simmons 1995: 58). A WarnerColor Cinemascope production starring James Dean and Natalie Wood, borrowing its title from a 1944 non-fiction book, the film was part of a larger shift in Hollywood towards addressing a teenage audience, at a time when teenagers started to be seen as a distinct subculture in marketing terms. %%EOF David Riesman, The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American Character, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1950. In Rebel without a Cause, Ray uses the widescreen format effectively in terms of suggesting the tensions among the characters. 1, Winter 1996, pp. That movie showed how life back then was changing and it presented the ending where someone doesn't live A rebellious young man with a troubled past comes to a new town, finding friends and enemies. h�b```g``�����8+�A���X���u:00� It mourns the loss of fatherly authority while simultaneously criticising its continued existence, most notably in the case of Judy’s stern father.