Jim Stark hit the big screen at a time when The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, Leave It To Beaver, and Father Knows Best were airing on TV. He wasn't your average teenager. Or, maybe he was, but he was the kind of teenager Hollywood had yet to depict. Jim was moody. He mumbled. He was an outcast. About halfway through the movie Rebel Without A Cause, he tried to choke his own father.
Stark is the main character in the 1955 Nicholas Ray classic, and his costume, look, and attitude are as recognizable today as they were almost 50 years ago. He's played, of course, by James Dean in one of the most memorable performances in decades. Dean wasn't quite a teenager when the movie was made, but he played one with such an alarming degree of aggression and openness, that in a lot of ways many subsequent screen teens have been playing catch up ever since. Such was the impact of his interpretation of the role that he earned a kind of immortality after his tragic death that same year.
The story (set using the Greek Unity of Time, Place, and Action principles) revolves around peer pressure and obligation. Jim and his disfunctional family have recently moved to Los Angeles. He has been picked up for "plain drunkenness" by a cop named Ray (Edward C. Platt). It's a busy night at the station -- Plato (Sal Mineo) and Judy (Natalie Wood) are being questioned as well. The story then cuts ahead to Jim's first day of school, where he is bullied by some schoolmates (Corey Allen and a young Dennis Hopper). He doesn't step down from a dangerous challenge, but when he turns to his father (Jim Backus) for help and guidance, the parent limply suggests his son make a list and work from there.
Rebel Without A Cause has some great shots, particularly one of Dean as he turns himself upside-down on the couch in his living room. They're complemented by some interesting foreshadowing and some symbolic images which crop up later in the film but in different contexts (a local planetarium, in particular, plays an important role).
Some might say the dialogue and subject matter in the film is dated, but I don't believe this to be the case. The stellar performances far outweigh any of the supposedly jarring moments. Mineo and Wood are highly involving, and Backus and Allen provide a lot of dimension given their limited screen time. It is James Dean, however, who captivates and engages in scene after scene. He hits the ground running in the opening two minutes and never looks back, offering up every range of emotion he can. It is a spirited, moving piece of acting.
The tendency with a film like Rebel Without A Cause is to dismiss it as lightweight, but because it is presented with such solemnity (in spite of the rather overwrought, melodramatic musical score by Leonard Rosenman), it leaps to life every time I watch it. It's definitely one of my all-time favourites.
