REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE

'''Rebel Without a Cause''' is a 1955 film directed by Nicholas Ray that tells the story of a rebellious teenager who comes to a new town, meets a girl, defies his parents, and faces the local gang. It sought to portray the existing decay of youth in middle America, critique parental style, and expose the rift between two generations. The title is taken from psychiatrist Robert Lindner's 1944 book, ''Rebel Without A Cause: The Hypnoanalysis of a Criminal Psychopath'' but has no other relationship to the book.
In 1990, this film was added to the preserved films of the United States Library of Congress's National Film Registry as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

Contents

Plot summary

The book

Pop culture references

Trivia

Cast

References

External links

Plot summary

The main plot centers on Jim Stark, a 17-year-old. Stark and his two parents move to Los Angeles, where he enrolls at Dawson High School. The film begins with Stark brought into the police station for public drunkenness. We then are introduced to his mother, father and grandmother who come to get him, and become aware of the film's central dilemma. Jim's parents are frequently quarrelling, both in front of him and behind his back. Often the father is the one who tries to stand up for Jim, however, Jim's mother, a naturally pushy woman, easily overpowers him and always wins out; Jim feels betrayed both by this fighting and by his father's lack of backbone, leading to feelings of unrest and displacement.
While trying to fit in at the school, he gets himself involved in silly games with a local bully and tough guy named Buzz Gunderson. While he tries to deal with Buzz, he becomes friends with a 15-year-old boy named Plato. Plato is very misguided in life, constantly getting into trouble and dealing with the police. He looks up to Jim as a role model, because his real father abandoned his family. Plato experiences many of the same problems as Jim, such as searching for a place in life and dealing with parents who "don't understand."

Jim meets a girl named Judy who is also often in trouble with the police. She belongs to the gang of Buzz Gunderson. The thugs challenge Jim to play "chicken" with Buzz, which means racing stolen cars towards an abyss. The one who first jumps out of the car loses and deemed a "chicken." The "game" ends in tragedy for Buzz; he is the first to "chicken," but a strap on the sleeve of his leather jacket becomes caught on the car door and he is unable to jump out of the car before it goes over the cliff (The movie audience thus knows that Jim "won" because Buzz tried to jump first).
Although the other members of the gang let Jim leave after the tragedy, they decide later that they want revenge. Jim tries tell his parents what happened but becomes frustrated by their utter failure to understand him and storms out of the house. Judy and Plato join him in the garden of an abandoned villa, where they act out a sort of "fantasy family", with Jim as father, Judy as mother and Plato as child. The thugs soon discover them however and they have to flee again.
Plato hides in an observatory and Jim and Judy follow him. Jim gives Plato his red jacket and in return, Plato gives Jim the gun, which Plato stole from his mother's bedroom, and Jim silently removes the bullets. By this time, the police have surrounded the building. When Plato steps out of the observatory, they see the gun, he is then shot and killed by the policemen. Jim Stark takes this very hard, but his father finally understands him.

The book

The book ''Rebel Without a Cause'' followed the hypnosis and psychoanalysis of a young criminal psychopath by the author. It contains full transcripts of 46 sessions where the author claims to scientifically determine the causes of his subjects' behavior. The analysis uses free association and the concept of repressed childhood memories to explain how the boy became a criminal. Lindner concluded that young criminals and psychopaths derive their behavior from "a profound hatred of the father," including both biological fathers and the fathers of society (male authority figures).

Pop culture references

★ The pop band ''Jim Stärk'' is named after the film's main character.

★ The '80s British rock group The Smiths quote a line from the movie for the song Stretch Out And Wait: "As we lie, you say : Will the world end in the night time? (I really don't know) Or will the world end in the day time? (I really don't know) And is there any point ever having children? Oh, I don't know. What I do know is we're Here and it's Now". It can be found on their 1986 compliation, ''Louder Than Bombs.''

★ Kid Rock's 1999 album, Devil Without a Cause (containing the hit Bawitdaba) is a play on the title of the film.

★ The Simpsons episode "Lisa's Date with Density" shares many plot similarities. In another episode, the Simpsons are watching a similar movie, in which one of the characters exclaims "He's a rebel I tell ya! A rebel without a cause! ...Like that popular movie we saw."

★ Long Island post-hardcore band Disarming Arctica have a song entitled "You can wake up now the universe has ended" based on a line from Rebel Without A Cause. The song is about the life and death of James Dean.

Trivia

★ The Griffith Observatory is featured prominently in the film and is the site of the movie's climax.

★ The man wearing a trenchcoat and carrying a briefcase and walking towards Griffith Observatory at the end of the movie is director Nicholas Ray.

★ All three of the main stars (James Dean, Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo) died under tragic circumstances. Dean was killed in a traffic accident on September 30, 1955 aged 24, Wood drowned on November 29, 1981 aged 43, and Mineo was murdered on February 12, 1976 aged 37. In addition, Nick Adams is often linked to the urban legend surrounding this film. Adams, often considered "The Poor Man's James Dean", attemped to let the spirit of Dean live vicariously through Adams in his work, which was notably most successful with ''The Rebel (TV series)''. But following an Oscar nomination for ''Twilight of Honor'', his career began to decline and he allegedly died of a drug overdose on February 7, 1968 aged 36 (although several people, including his own daughter, believe he may have been killed).

★ Warner Brothers had bought the rights to the book, intending to use the title for a film. Attempts to create a film version in the late 1940s eventually ended without a film or even a full script being produced. When Marlon Brando did a five-minute screen test for the studio in 1947, he was given fragments of one of the 1940s partial scripts. However, Brando was not auditioning for ''Rebel Without a Cause'' and there was no offer of any part made by the studio. The film, as it later appeared, was the result of a totally new script written in the 1950s that had nothing to do with the material Brando screen-tested with. The screen test is included on a 2006 special edition DVD of ''A Streetcar Named Desire''

★ There is a brief moment of meta-humor when Jim Stark verbally mocks his father in the voice of Mr. Magoo. (Jim Backus was the voice of the famous cartoon character.) Backus later said that the studio was upset by Dean's insistence on doing the line in the voice of Magoo (a character owned by the UPA studio) and actually made the absurd suggestion that, "since this is a Warner Brothers film, couldn't he do Bugs Bunny instead?"

★ The cliff edge chicken scene has been imitated in numerous films and TV programs, including the video of Paula Abdul's ''Rush Rush'', an episode of ''Mighty Morphin Power Rangers'', and ''Quantum Leap''.

★ The film is one of several films examined in the 1995 documentary about how Hollywood films have historically depicted homosexuality titled ''The Celluloid Closet''.

Cast

★ James Dean – Jim Stark

★ Natalie Wood – Judy

★ Sal Mineo – John "Plato" Crawford

★ Jim Backus – Frank Stark

★ Ann Doran – Mrs. Stark

★ Corey Allen – Buzz Gunderson

★ William Hopper – Judy's father

★ Rochelle Hudson – Judy's mother

★ Edward Platt – Ray Fremick

★ Nick Adams – Chick

★ Dennis Hopper – Goon

★ Jack Grinnage – Moose

★ Beverly Long – Helen
'Award Wins:'

★ 1990 National Film Registry
'Award nominations:'

★ Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor – Sal Mineo

★ Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress – Natalie Wood

★ Best Writing, Motion Picture Story – Nicholas Ray

★ BAFTA Award for Best Film

★ BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actor – James Dean

References

★ Frascella, Lawrence and Weisel, Al : ''Live Fast, Die Young: The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause''. Touchstone, 2005. ISBN 0-7432-6082-1

External links

★ All Time Rebel {1955-2005: 50th Anniversary}

★ Jack Grinnage's Homepage (he played "Moose")

★ Behind the Scenes of 'Rebel Without a Cause': James Dean, Sal Mineo, Natalie Wood—Living Fast, Dying Young, in Life and Onscreen

★ "The Making of ''Rebel Without a Cause''" by Sam Kashner A ''Vanity Fair'' piece about Nicholas Ray with a particular focus on ''Rebel.''

★ The Expression 'Live Fast, Die Young and Leave a Good-looking Corpse' at h2g2