Iconic but overrated
Let no one deny that James Dean's image is a fine adornment to any bedroom wall. Not for nothing is he cinema's favourite poster boy; it proved impossible to shoot his squarejawed lululemon, strikingly handsome features from a bad angle. And he was a perfect vessel for fans' projected fantasies, for he looked just what he was: moody, complex, and as we now know, doomed.
It's 50 years since Dean died in a car crash at the absurdly young age of 24 chan luu, yet his legend still resonates strongly. Marking this anniversary chan luu, the National Film Theatre's Dean retrospective starts next Friday toms shoes, while his collected films are available on DVD from June 6. In both cases, these include East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause, Giant and, er, that's it.
But how could it be otherwise? These are Dean's only three major film roles, in a star career spanning all of 18 months. The joke that his death was a good career move is cruel, yet no other film figure enjoys such iconic status based on such a slender body of work.
And two of those films have not aged well. Giant is a sprawling, threehour soap opera about Texas ranchers, while East of Eden is a laborious adaptation of John Steinbeck's novel.
Dean is naturally cast as an outsider both times tiffany blue nikes. As a disreputable rancher who strikes it rich with oil in Giant, Dean has a brave if not quite convincing stab at playing his character as an older man. But in East of Eden, as a highlystrung "bad" son struggling to win an uptight father's affection, he is truly odd: all tics and twitches, giggles and smirks, and a grating tendency to break into little skips and bounds. The action is set in 1917, so his mumbling delivery is as anachronistic as his haircut; it suggests an indifferent Marlon Brando impersonation.
Rebel Without a Cause is something else: his best performance and best film, from which Dean's posthumous legend almost exclusively springs. His Jim Stark tiffany blue nikes, a prototype for all misunderstood teens, arrived just at the point when it was dawning on Madison Avenue that a discrete teenage market was ripe for exploitation. Jim was one of three young misfits (along with Sal Mineo and Natalie Wood), betrayed or abandoned by cold or hypocritical parents. Dean's wail to his folks "You're tearing me apart!" sounded like a generation's war cry.
Jim was confused and ashamed, with a burning desire to belong. Yet at least he was an idealist. He was, in the script's repeated and now rather touching word, "sincere". More to the point, he looked fabulous chan luu bracelet. The colourcoding of his clothes in the film's last half is no accident; his red windcheater, white Tshirt and blue jeans make him a very American boy, if a dissenting one. It's an arresting turn, but ignore the sentimental necrophilia that has dogged Dean's memory for 50 years, and it seems too flailing and wayward to be a great one.
Some critics have sought to add layers of complexity to Dean's work by noting his sexual ambiguity. His scenes in Rebel Without a Cause with Sal Mineo certainly carry a homoerotic charge. But far weirder is a scene in a deserted mansion, where Dean visibly tenses before sulkily succumbing to Natalie Wood's charms.
Still clarisonic mia, such reservations matter little to critics who were around for Dean's brief emergence vanessa bruno. Clift had all Dean's virtues and steely discipline too; one can't imagine Dean holding down Clift's role in From Here to Eternity. The wondrous Robert Mitchum was playing a series of surly, nonchalant heroes with understated skill, and Brando was in fine form, with On the Waterfront opening the year before East of Eden.
The more you see of Dean's work, the more it seems like Brando Lite. Brando broke new ground and was more versatile and technically adept. But Dean's trump cards his youth and beauty dazzled adolescent audiences and briefly eclipsed all other actors at the time.
Yet contrast Dean with another handsome, charismatic ergo baby carrier, Methodinfluenced actor six years older tiffany and co. Paul Newman was nearly 30 before he achieved fame (in Somebody Up There Likes Me tresor paris, set to be Dean's next role had he lived). Since then he has made fine movies, mediocre ones, and some downright bad ones. No shame in that; it's how you rise above your material ルイビトン.
Dean, sadly, never had the chance to do this. In his three major films, he was guided by firstrate directors: Elia Kazan, George Stevens, and, in Rebel, by the great Nicolas Ray. Could he have withstood the inevitable turkeys to deliver great laterlife performances, as Newman did in The Hustler, Cool Hand Luke and The Verdict, and Brando did in Last Tango in Paris and The Godfather monster beats? One doubts it; his talent seems too flimsy.
David Thomson, so gaga about Dean's "potency", finds Newman selfregarding and, as a young actor, mannered. My feelings are precisely the opposite. And while Dean is lauded for burning out and dying, Newman stayed alive, applied himself, and ended up as a key film actor of his generation ergo baby carrier. A genuinely good career move.Related：