A superb movie about the nature of White, Western teenagers. It shows middle class delinquents who are the inevitable result of a lack of positive role models and poor parenting. The teenage angst, the growing pains and the narcissistic masochism are brilliantly articulated and expressed by James Dean. (Although he only completed three films, he was surely the best, the most intuitive and the most instinctive actor of any movie generation.)
Here, desperate attempts to fit in socially are detailed along with looking for kicks to overcome the ennui of much of Western culture. Many of the girls here are attracted to bad boys – Natalie Wood, in particular – yet are not bad themselves, only bored and directionless. The boys possess macho status symbols like flick knives, yet their outer toughness masks inner emotional softness and, in their own eyes, personal weakness. That you come to like many of the characters stands testament to the quality of the acting, script and direction. The makers never forgot – as we are prone to doing today – that these are people with the same existential problems as ourselves, albeit with different ways of resolving them.
On the parents' side, James Dean's father does not wear the trousers in his own home and wants to be his son's friend rather than his father – an improper role for him to occupy. Natalie Wood's father feels threatened by his daughter's burgeoning sexuality and desperately seeks to deny the fact that she arouses him by attacking her for wearing makeup – attacking her for the very fact of being a woman.
Apart from James Dean, all the other performances are equally impressive and it would be invidious to pick out ones for special mention but Natalie Wood as his girlfriend and Aldo Ray as his hero worshipping best friend stand out. They both seem pulled along in the star's magnetic slipstream; forcing them to up their game and pull out all the stops to provide the best performances they can. They also well express the ennui of bored teens who are not being listened to because the adults around them never fully navigated puberty themselves; leading to parents treating their kids like emotional footballs.
The ending is a bit of a copout in suggesting that a solution to the particular problems shown here is possible with little more than good faith. Nevertheless, this is an impressive analysis of a particular and peculiar problem of Western culture.
Copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment