Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 25-August-02
Spoiler Rating: High

Rebel Without a Cause (1955)

Quite unintentionally, I seem to have begun a little series on movies that I didn't like the first time, but admired after a second viewing many years later. Last week the first in the series was "Say Anything . . .", and this week's entry is none other than the 1950s classic "Rebel Without a Cause." I don't clearly remember my initial thoughts on this film when I saw it as a college freshman, but the impression it left was of vague annoyance with the overblown angst of silly youth. Well, I myself must have been a very silly youth indeed not to realize that "Rebel Without a Cause" is a taut, wonderfully constructed film that resounds to the credit of its screenwriter, director, and actors.

The similarity between "Rebel" and "Say Anything . . ." doesn't stop with my evolving reactions to them; both films feature young male heroes who are exceedingly good and noble, and whose determined virtue is the catalyst for changes in the other characters' lives. Jim Stark, as embodied by the legendary and enormously gifted James Dean, is the kind of person I pray really exists but fear really doesn't. He simply insists that personal honor must be one's foremost, if not only, motivation; and, not surprisingly, all of the other characters react to this insistence with fear, fascination, or admiration. No one who comes in contact with him is quite the same afterwards.

The movie details the events of a single 24-hour period. All of the principals are introduced at a police station in the middle of the night: Jim, a kind but angry kid who was brought in for public drunkenness; his father (Jim Backus), a spineless, henpecked fool; his mother (Ann Doran), a cold and bitter harpy; Judy (Natalie Wood), a young woman picked up for wandering the streets at night in a desperate attempt to draw the attention of her father; and Plato (Sal Mineo), a bright teen who has been abandoned by both parents and is clearly a time bomb waiting to explode (he was brought in for shooting some puppies). Jim's family has moved often in the past few years due to his run-ins with the law, but this time he is determined to make a successful go of it. Consequently, he tries to avoid trouble after running afoul of a group of tough kids the next day at school, but is unable to avoid a confrontation which leaves one of them dead. He turns to his father more than once seeking advice, but this poor excuse for a man (shown puttering around in an apron when Jim confronts him in one excellent scene), is unable to provide the honest, straightforward counsel that his son requires. Left to follow his own idealistic way, Jim attracts the admiration of both Judy and Plato, and the threesome create their own little family, of which Jim is the brave and enlightened father figure that none of them ever had. But their simulated domestic happiness is destroyed when, pursued by both the tough kids and the cops, they enter into a dangerous showdown from which only two of them emerge.

This movie contains a lot of major events (love, death, knife fights, and shootouts), addresses a lot of big issues (the frustration of romantic youth, the fragile but crucial relationship between parents and children, the need for role models), and seems to be deliberately courting the reputation it has of representing an entire culture and age. But while in lesser hands such a picture could be a corny, unbelievable melodrama about stereotypes, director Nicholas Ray and screenwriter Stewart Stern (using Ray's story) have created a work that is simultaneously a broad social commentary and a tale about noteworthy individuals. The script, like a good poem, contains only what is necessary; no lines or scenes are superfluous, and they all serve to define the players' personalities or motivations while moving the story along. The characters and their personal failings, disappointments, and desires are recognizable from other films (as well as books, the news, or our own lives), but that doesn't make them any less interesting. Credit for this, of course, also resides with the absolutely stellar cast. Whatever may be the appeal of his hair, his smirk, and the way he smokes a cigarette, James Dean is much, much more than just cool. Few other other actors, especially ones so young, could ever make the nonpareil Jim seem entirely flesh and blood or successfully carry off such lines as "what do you do when you have to be a man?" Mineo and Backus are very strong, and Natalie Wood, whom I'm used to seeing as a sweet young thing, is a revelation as a would-be bad girl who doesn't know what to do with the fact of her own impending adulthood. (The cast also includes a young Dennis Hopper as one of the youthful thugs.)

I enjoyed "Rebel Without a Cause" because, like its hero, it is idealistic. It illustrates how people who are passionate about being honorable and doing the right thing are sometimes viewed as anomalies in our society (and even in their own homes), but that the lack of such people is detrimental to the fulfillment and happiness of all. Everyone cannot help being drawn to Jim Stark, antagonistically or in admiration, because he represents something universally recognized as powerful, if not good and essential. His cause is simply a noble life; he's a rebel because such a life, difficult at all times, is nearly impossible in our the modern world.

Copyright © 2002 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.