Nov. 16, 2005 - Issue #526: Sex, Lust & Love

Dean of fine arts

James Dean Retrospective reminds us of the skilled actor behind the teen rebel icon

The mythical icon of James Dean that sprung to life virtually in tandem with the actor’s death at the age of 24 is so pervasive, his endlessly appropriated image so deeply emblematic of both a universal sense of alienated youth and seductive recklessness, that it’s easy to forget the genuine value of his slim but still radiant legacy. Metro Cinema is offering the opportunity to revisit that legacy this weekend with screenings of the three films in which Dean had a starring role, each of them highly indicative of the new social consciousness seeping through certain Hollywood movies of the mid-’50s and each placing Dean firmly in the role of opposition to authority, conventional modes of masculinity, moral presumptuousness, social convention and family values. With a preternaturally gifted, individual acting style that emphasized instinct, behaviour and vulnerability over posturing and uncomplicated glamour, Dean was an incisive antidote to the false idealism of the Eisenhower era delivered in a beautiful package. Yet his performances endure, resonating far beyond their contemporary context and, to a degree, even beyond the value of at least one of these films as a whole.

In the case of his starring debut in East of Eden (1955), it may be fair to say that Dean’s performance is the most well-rounded and sophisticated aspect of the film. Adapted from John Steinbeck’s novel about rival fraternal twin brothers in 1917 California, it’s often all too characteristic of the dry, schematic side of director Elia Kazan’s cinema: its Biblical parallels feel over-deliberated; its politics are provocative yet undernourished; its gorgeous, atmospheric photography is, at times, marred by skewed angles that strain toward metaphor; Leonard Rosenman’s bombastic music frequently overwhelms already fiery scenes; and its characters, particularly the one-dimensional “good” brother played by Richard Davalos, feel subservient to a carefully mapped-out plotline.

Yet Dean manages to slip past the guards of heavy-handed dramaturgy here, uncovering layers of emotional complexity and suitably muddled motivations to his fruitless search for identity through parental confrontation. He conveys inner torment without attempting to ingratiate himself in superfluous compensation, and in the one potentially overwrought moment where he reaches his peak and has no place left to go, credit goes to Kazan for shrewdly placing Dean behind a tree, eloquently casting him out of paradise, only to have him return after a dark transformation has occurred just out of view. Even while the ending feels like a bogus resolution, Dean makes us believe that, for his character at least, a defining shift has transpired—though all responsibility for this shift lies entirely within him and no longer in whatever shreds of 11th-hour comfort his father might offer.

If Dean’s electrifying presence elevates the general tone of East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause (1955) merely places him at the centre of a large circle of artists all working in top form and celestial harmony. Nicholas Ray brings an air of true cinematic poetry to the melodrama and tender emotions being explored in Stewart Stern’s script (inspired by news stories of the day about middle-class youth gone bad), and focuses every aspect of the film’s aesthetic on his extension of sympathy to all its key players. Ray guides us through 24 hours of teen angst and wonder, fast, disposable cars and abandoned mansions, all with subtle flashes of romance and expressionism that illuminate the story’s themes without distracting us from the characters. His sectioned CinemaScope compositions in the first minutes alone give depth and texture to the world bearing down on them, and through this approach he allows the performances to bloom efficiently and organically before our eyes while the universe literally blossoms and dies around the film’s the characters.

Dean’s Jim Stark swings from manic outbursts of inarticulate frustration to serene moments of playfulness and warmth that transcend teenage brashness as much as exemplify it. He writhes in directionless, self-absorbed agony as only a teenager can, yet he also displays moments of maturity and vision that allow us to imagine the man he might become. With the characters memorably portrayed by Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo, Jim creates a potential alternative family to the one he feels so at odds with, and the immediate disruption of that in the film’s tragic finale is itself a sign of the difficult, lonesome road that lies ahead of Jim on his way to finding a place in the world.

With Giant (1956), released well after his death, Dean was already taking steps away from adolescence, if not also from awkwardness. Though still squaring off against the establishment, his ranch hand turned oil baron Jett Rink goes from rags to riches and ages a quarter-century over the course of George Stevens’s epic based on Edna Ferber’s novel. Whether boasting of his social climbing while audaciously splattered in oil or peering at young women through sunglasses as a creepily charming older man, Dean’s performance is intriguingly shaded—sexy in a darker manner and shot through the spite that Rink never shakes off for all the wealth he amasses.

Rink is actually on the periphery, however, as an important counterpoint to Benedict, Rock Hudson’s Texas cattle baron and his progressive wife Leslie, played by Liz Taylor. Though Leslie is by far the only character worth admiring in Giant, Benedict is the one who transforms, embodying the dualities that exist quite gracefully in this protracted but perfectly absorbing tale. The film is both an indictment and an elegy for the Old South, in all its easy charm, its weird blend of formality and informality, and its sickening, racist, classist, sexist decadence. There’s regional humour (the pile of cowboy hats outside the funeral is pretty cute), scenes of brutal crudity and a surprisingly rich portrait of a marriage that survives (barely) on chaos and female assertion. It also sports great performances from all involved. V

James Dean Retrospective
Metro Cinema • Fri-Mon, Nov 18-21 • 425-9212

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