Rebel Without a Cause

Rebel Without a Cause, a romance and drama movie, was directed by Nicholas Ray starring James Dean and Natalie Wood. A fun, exciting and action filled film. This is one of those movies that makes you think one thing is going to happen but then throws you for a twist. You are never really sure what is going to happen next.

With James Dean playing the part of Jim Stark, a teenage boy who had just moved to a new town, and Natalie Wood playing the role of a beautiful, popular girl named Judy. The movie was based in the 1950’s after a book. The first major conflict in this movie was between Jim and Buzz; they both liked Judy. Plato is also an important character in this movie He has no father, and is being raised by a motherly housekeeper. Jim befriended him when he arrived at his new home.

Rebel Without a Cause has not aged as well as other movies have from that time. Juvenile delinquency was a common theme throughout the movie.

This movie sort of reminded me of There’s something about Mary. Two boys wanted one girl but overall this movie was unique. I don’t remember seeing another movie quite like this one.

When I first started watching this film there were a lot of simple cuts which I thought were boring, I had a feeling it was going to be like that for the whole movie, but I waited and further into the movie Nicholas began to use interesting camera movements. He used various tilts, often to show something bad that was about to happen. For instance when Buzz stabbed Jims tire outside the observatory. The tilt started up at Buzz’s face and tilted down to where he stabbed the tire with a switchblade.

The use of angles in this film was very effective. It showed power and weakness of certain characters. I remember from the beginning when Jim and his father were at the police station and the two were in an office and they displayed his father at a low angle to show his power at the time and Jim at a high angle, as he sat drunk and fallen on the floor.

Viewing this film in the year 2008, changed how I saw this film. Because of the half a century difference in the years I thought the dialogue was unrealistic, people do not talk how they did in the film these days. Because of the different use of words it tore me away from the meaning of the film. In a couple cases Jim talked back to his father and did not get in trouble for it. Under most circumstances children who talk back to their parents in this century would get punished, or at least a little bit of trouble.

James and Natalie were two perfect actors to play the main roles in this film. The acting was done very well on their part, I really believed they were the characters, it was not just them acting out a part in a film.

Although the acting was good, there were a few weird scenes in this movie which would not happen at this point in time. Specifically I remember at the observatory, after the scene of Jims tire deflating to the hot cement. A cop came down to group of rebels, as he was headed to the two boys holding knives pointed at each other, one of Buzz’s friends took the police officers hat and wore it, and Judy, Buzz’s girlfriend at the time, grabbed the mans cheek and squeezed it. If you remember back far enough our grandparents, aunt and uncles and anyone who came to see you when you were just a little baby used to do to the same thing.

The most remarkable scene that caused the most drama in this film was the game of “Chicken”. Jim and Buzz stole two cars, one each, and had to drive towards a cliff and whoever jumped out first, lost. Turns out, that game was ended in the death of one of the poor boys. Before the race began Buzz told Jim that he liked him. Jim, puzzled, asked why they were going to do this race. Buzz, being a jerk told Jim he had to do something to prove himself worthy.

The lighting in this movie I felt was very poorly done. Near the end of the movie at the observatory, after most of the action had taken place, the lighting they used outside made it look like it was practically daylight out when it was supposed to be in the middle of the night. At a point it looked like they were using a spotlight to highlight the action, again when it was in the middle of the night. I thought the use of lighting was ineffective in this drama.

The action never seemed to stop during this movie. It kept me intrigued the whole time and I wanted to watch more. It was scene to scene action, I was always wondering what was going to happen next.

Sound didn’t play a huge role in this movie. You would hear suspenseful music when a scary scene was about to happen, the music sped my heart rate up a little bit each time, but again it didn’t play a major role in the understanding of this film.

Watching this movie, I remember glancing at the time and 45 minutes had already passed by. The movie threw me for a loop but Rebel Without a Cause was a pretty good movie. Nicholas Ray directed a great film with some wonderful cinematography aspects and great acting.