Rebel Without A Cause

E:
When was the last time you saw this moobie?
As we all know, James Dean made only 3 films. East of Eden, Rebel Without A Cause and Giant. Only East of Eden was released before his fatal car crash where Highway 41 meets Highway 46. Of the three, it is Rebel more than anything else in his oeuvre that solidified his status as a matinee idol and cemented his image in our collective consciousness forever. It's easy to see how the mythology surrounding the man contributed to the legend he has become.
Dean serves this character Jim Stark quite well. Stark is a troubled teen who feels emotionally abandoned by the people meant to guide him through his formative years - his parents. His mother does nothing but nag and his father too spineless to recover from her. As Jim says early in the film, they're tearing him apart.
In a new city, in a new school, he meets with trouble. Trouble bites back turning into more trouble. With neither guidance nor integrity from his parents, Jim seeks solace in a couple of other misfit kids. Unfortunately, one of them is too close to the edge.
Of course Rebel made a star out of Dean and won both critical acclaim and box office gold. But it's relatively difficult to understand how the subject matter of the film was truly received. From what I understand, the content - teen angst - was a completely new and innovative topic. Growing up in the 80's where teen angst was king, I can only imagine what it must have been like to see something like this for the very first time.
Taking a look at the moobie with fresh eyes definitely made for an interesting evening. The colors of that day were so saturated - extreme vibrant reds and greens and yellows. It's a far cry from the realistic colors we're accustomed to these days. Scripts and acting tended towards melodramatic those days too, almost as if everything - the colors, the emotions, the events were all forced into the hyperreal specifically to distance film from television; quite the opposite of today's pictures.
The emotional impact of the events, however, remain the same. It's a good film. There are moments where it veers into the theatrical, but overall it stands the test of time. Seeing this film today versus even 10 years ago, I have a deeper understanding of these characters and a clearer picture of the elements at play. I never even thought about Plato being gay before. Watching it this time around it was all too obvious. Now instead of taking Dean's angst for granted, I can appreciate that his rebellion does in fact have a cause.