I really like this movie but I am not sure why. I was not definite that this would be a film taking a strong stance against 1950's America, 50's culture, or 50's film making, and in the end I am not sure that it knew what it was that it was fighting against. There are rebellious youth in the film (hence the name), and I think that there simply needs to be anger and frustration for the sake of anger and frustration. I believed it though, because the muddled message(s) were delivered with unbridled passion.
James Dean gives his signature role as Jim Stark, a troubled teenage nobody whose parents move him to a new school as he beat up an student at his previous one. The reason? He was called a chicken. That seems like a silly reason, but Jim so forcefully makes it clear that he is not a chicken, has pride, wants to be a man, and wants to be absolutely nothing like his father who crumbles under his mother's will. Being the new kid is hard and Jim impresses the wrong people for the wrong reasons.
However, he also catches the eyes of two other troubled teens. There is Plato (Sal Mineo), the psychologically disturbed 16 year old child, abandoned by his parents and raised by his Mammy. Then there is Judy (Natalie Wood), a good girl with a father who hates her and who has fallen in with the toughs. It is not until after a tragic accident that the three form together to create something of a surrogate family. They create a strange relationship with each other that I do not completely understand, but there is a love and a trust between them that can only be formed when you meet someone that you know absolutely nothing about.
Jim is a very odd hero, but someone that I like very much, someone that I rooted for, and a type of person that I would like to befriend in real life. He acts out, yes, but I he doesn't seem to know why he does it. He wants to be a man, but doesn't know how, and that confusion leads him to do stupid things. The movie opens with him being taken into the police station for drunkenness where his parents come to collect him. They have a fight establishing the strong/weak relationship and Jim screams out the famous line, "You're tearing me apart!" It's the general angst that all teenagers feel at not being understood. He is also funny, and generous, and as Judy pointed out he shows affection to Plato, whom everybody else dislikes. He doesn't want to cause trouble, but he can't seem to avoid doing the wrong things.
My favorite dynamic in the film was between Jim and his father. When I think of 50's cinema there is definitely not a image of the weak father being challenged by the son, so it came as a shock. Even in 2011 there were things about this film that startled and inspired me, so I can only imagine how it was interpreted when it was released. There are fissures in the gilded world of 1955 and Rebel Without a Cause takes the time to slap it in our face. It is an aggressive film with real moments of truth amongst the melodrama, like presenting a spineless father and a selfish mother who always plays the victim, that challenges traditional interpretations of characters of 50's film.
Of course there are others that remain the same. the 50's greaser punk is something that wearies me but never seems to go away. They are always mindless and always mean for the sake of meanness which is tiresome. Most of the other adults are stupid and don't listen in the way that they ought to. I wonder if they were young once? It seems like they never are. This film is a plight for the young folk and I guess somebody has to be at fault.
The acting is terrific all around. Wood gives a heartbreaking monologue in the beginning at the police station, and Mineo's Peter Pan like qualities gave his character an unusual edge. I don't particularly agree with the character itself, it felt a bit creepy and strangely homoerotic towards Jim, but his delivery was convincing. Dean did a really great job as Jim. It was very obviously Brando inspired, but filtered in his own view it became something fresh and exciting to watch.
I did not like the last ten minutes of the film which saddened me. I felt as though there was an obligatory ending that the audience was cheated out of. It seemed obvious, but obviously the best ending. I imagine that the idea was toyed with, but that it would have created a film that was too dark for its audience and would have put an ugly stain on characters that we are supposed to care for. Nevertheless, it would have cemented what I think were the messages being delivered by the film. I guess what they did was fine, but it wasn't the greatest.
This is a film not to be missed. Its power definitely has not diminished over time.
3.5/4
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