Native Hoosier James Dean made just three films. And while "East of Eden" and "Giant" are certainly very good pictures, Nicholas Ray’s "Rebel Without a Cause" is Dean’s classic. Deftly expressing the teen angst of the purportedly homogeneous and saccharin 1950s, Ray set his film in suburban America rather than the more common urban framework. While "Rebel" was a hit with younger audiences, older viewers were startled that such depression and emotional confusion could exist within the carefully constructed foundation of post-war suburbia. As the teen suicide rate climbed throughout the decade, many wrote off "Rebel" as an overstatement of a minor issue affecting only a tiny slice of suburban teens. This tragic misreading of Ray’s cinematic warning makes "Rebel" hold up as one of the best films of the 1950s, even if some of the dialogue seems stilted and dated.
Rebel Without A Cause
Rebel Without A Cause
Rebel Without A Cause
Native Hoosier James Dean made just three films. And while "East of Eden" and "Giant" are certainly very good pictures, Nicholas Ray’s "Rebel Without a Cause" is Dean’s classic. Deftly expressing the teen angst of the purportedly homogeneous and saccharin 1950s, Ray set his film in suburban America rather than the more common urban framework. While "Rebel" was a hit with younger audiences, older viewers were startled that such depression and emotional confusion could exist within the carefully constructed foundation of post-war suburbia. As the teen suicide rate climbed throughout the decade, many wrote off "Rebel" as an overstatement of a minor issue affecting only a tiny slice of suburban teens. This tragic misreading of Ray’s cinematic warning makes "Rebel" hold up as one of the best films of the 1950s, even if some of the dialogue seems stilted and dated.