According to Albert Camus, rebels are not egotistical individuals. For an act of rebellion to succeed, suffering must be seen as a collective experience. The dictum, whatever its words, is invariably along the line of “I rebel – therefore we exist.” Any occasional indulgence in individual self-interest would derail the movement from its primary motivations, which comprise, above all, a resolute denial of superior authority and a dogged pursuit of the common good. For a rebel, his final choices inevitably boil down to either “All” or “Nothing” – all of his appeals answered and sufficiently taken care of, or to concede defeat, which means, in many cases, death: “Better to die on one’s feet than to live on one’s knee.”
The Rebel was published in 1951, a seminal essay that heralded the upcoming “age of revolt”, which, as history shows, has soon evolved into a subculture of its own. A growing interest in challenging the entrenched, antediluvian societal values and traditions gripped the prevalent mindsets of the 1950s; it is an era with the proliferation of fictional works that fell under the rubric of transgressive literature, such as Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Nabokov’s Lolita, Burroughs’ Junkie, Kerouac’s On the Road, Ginsberg’s Howl. In those works and their likes, youths are often cast alternately as the menace and the saving grace of the crumbling moral universe. Rebel Without a Cause, bearing the bona fide stamp of the ‘50s, was however not the first Nicolas Ray’s film that dealt with the subject of teenager. His debut, They Live by Night, is a “couple on the run” noir centers on two young desperadoes (although both O’ Donnell and Granger were in their 20s when the film was shot, and the age of their characters were not specified), and is, in many respects, a superior production. But it is Rebel which has been widely regarded as the one setting the tone and the pattern for a spate of “juvenile delinquents” dramas that followed.
Comparing with its precursor, Benedek’s The Wild One, Rebel is even more animated and progressive in its representation of the volatile, angst-ridden teen spirit. This can be largely accredited to the contrasting coloration of the imagery, to the effect that James Dean’s red jacket clashes so garishly with the enveloping night shades, in the way that his character clashes with the bullies of the school, whose instinctive pugilism is an old trait he tries sedulously to steer clear of; and also to the story’s flirtation with sexual confusion (Wood’s character’s seemingly incestuous relationship with her father, and Mineo’s character’s affection, bordering on hero-worship, for Dean’s character). The latter concern, viewed with a less hidebound perspective of now, can be easily dismissed as incidental character features that bear no relevance except as within the narrative. But for the moviegoers of 1955, these moments may not likely to go by without eliciting a few frowns or nervous laughter.
On the whole, Rebel has not aged well especially in terms of its emphasis, perhaps ironic, on the primacy of patriarchal ideology. The wrenching conversation that Dean’s character has with his father – obliquely blaming his insubordination on his father’s weak nature - is enough a suggestion of the former’s hidden mental issues. Many of the dialogues also come across as stilted and tedious. The mise-en-scène of the three main characters in a dilapidated mansion, where they hide from the school bullies who are avenging for the accidental death of their friend, is a woeful missed opportunity for something more subtle and symbolic. The fact that the story takes place a little over 24 hours should not really bear on the rushed pace of the overall production but, in this case, it may somehow account for the majority of the film’s shortcomings.
The film remains a favorite among the audience and the director himself nonetheless, and, judging solely on Dean’s spellbinding portrayal of a troubled but empathetic character, it surely earns its place in American film history as one of the iconic and edgy tributes to an important time and culture. In terms of visual style and techniques, Rebel also anticipates Ray’s next masterpiece, Bigger Than Life.
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