Please read Roger Ebert's Great Movies essay on Rebel Without a Cause. In 2 paragraphs, please discuss the following quote:
"Like its hero, Rebel Without a Cause desperately wants to say something and doesn't know what it is. If it did know, it would lose its fascination. More perhaps than it realized, it is a subversive document of its time."
Early in his essay, Ebert claims that "the film has not aged well." Do you agree or disagree? Give me a paragraph that tells me why.
I would agree that Rebel Without A Cause has not aged too well, but I do not necessarily think that this is a bad thing. Rather, it is a depiction of an attempt at subversion of standard 1950s morals. Through doing this, it still feels like a document of the 1950s, in that it clearly depicts what an audience would have considered subversive, and from a modern perspective, shows how what is considered subversive has changed.
ReplyDeleteI would also agree that the film does not seem like it totally knows what it wants to say. The film jumps across many different ideas, and ends up being rather ambiguous. For example, an existentialist subtext is attempted (somewhat clumsily, in my opinion), when Judy responds with "Who lives?" when Jim asks her where she lives. However, Judy is later presented as rather happy-go-lucky, even though she does have problems of her own at home. As well, at the end of the film, the tone shifts dramatically in the final scene. Right after Plato is taken away into an ambulance, James introduces Judy to his parents, and the parents walk away smiling, as if nothing had happened beforehand.
The sudden shifts in tone in this film are part of why it is not able to be totally subversive. While there are attempts at subversion, such as the aforementioned attempt at existentialism, as well as the violence and depiction of poor domestic situations in the homes of the three main characters, the film will sometimes push these darker ideas and themes aside and attempt to become more whimsical. The somewhat happy ending seems tacked on, as if the film could not end too grimly. Thus, I believe that the film does, in fact, attempt to be subversive, but is not totally successful because it still has to work under the constraints of the morality of the 1950s.
I partially agree with this quote and feel that the film knows how to say what it wishes to say, but chooses not to say it fully. Rebel Without a Cause does not go into depth about much. It showed the problems and revealed its effects on the characters, but did not go into great detail about how it became a problem and there are no offered solutions. Much is left for the audience to decipher and that is what makes it so well loved. The audience can place themselves into the characters’ shoes and relate with them. What’s great about is that since there are no solutions, the audience does not feel like they must do something to feel better, the problems just go anyway. The audience of the fifties wanted happy endings and wanted to feel good, so because there are so many upsetting issues surrounding this film, it had to end happily. That is the reason for the film’s partial insight about the subjects it dealt with, because the audience did not want to see it.
ReplyDeleteThis film is a subversive document of its time for a number of reasons. The film deals with many dark and secretive issues that many would not associate with the fifties, entertainment-wise. I remember being shocked by the material dealt with in this film because I thought the fifties only dealt with happy subjects. This issue was resolved by the abrupt happy ending and that on its own reveals a lot about the time it was made in. There are all of these dark and pressing matters that people dealt with, but instead of finding solution and help, the problems were ignored in the hope that they would just go away and everything would go back to normal. The subversion is also due to the fact that the audience did not wish to see these sort of issues when they went to the movies and Nicholas Ray had to tone this film down to a certain extent, so to get away with showing these matters, he made it would subversive. That way the audience could see more of what they wanted to see.
I believe that the film has aged decently well. There are some issues that are outdated such as the “chickie run” and the costumes, but there is still much that is extremely related to today’s world. There are still children that feel lost and confused like Dean’s character, children that desire parental figures like Plato, and children that do not fully understand growing up like Natalie Wood’s character (turning into a fully developed young woman and kissing your father). This film deals with many issues that the youth still deal with today, but in a different manner. Children steal feel isolated, alone, pressured, etc., etc. The characters dealt with those issues in the film, but in different ways than the youth does today. There are now cyber bullying and school shootings, not playing chicken and stabbing each other with knives. This film, although it has aged and certain aspects are outdated, it still speaks to the youth and their struggle at such a vulnerable and self-finding age.
Nicholas Ray’s movie itself is truly a “rebel without a cause.” It attempts to make a number of vague and contrived subversive statements that ultimately look ridiculous in a movie that adheres to the clichéd style of the 1950’s. The mis-en-scene of long skirts and leather jackets is very 50’s. The story too follows a white suburban family as many 50’s films did. However, it implicitly deals with subjects such as incest and homosexuality and explicitly deals with teens who sort of contradict the pleasantness of the 50’s. In the film’s opening scene it seems like Jim has gotten drunk and ended up in jail as some sort of reaction to the absence of love in his family or something like that. His parents have bought him a car and moved several times in an attempt to make Jim happy but this comes off as an artificial method to compensate for something. Perhaps Jim is frustrated with this artificial display of love just as Plato and Judy are affected by the absence of parents who demonstrate their love in meaningful ways. The absence of love at home turns Judy into a rebel and Plato into an outsider. But Jim claims his frustration is actually with his parents’ refusal to blame him for his own mistakes and then with his father’s inability to stand up to his mother. These points are never really resolved in the movie.
ReplyDeleteThe group that slashes Jim’s tires at the planetarium is excessively cruel. However, the leader of the group later admits to liking Jim (based off of the little time they have had together) so it appears that his meanness is just an act. Judy, too, joins the group in some odd reaction to her father’s harsh treatment so she is also not really cruel. The film seems to be suggesting that these mean teens are not really what they appear and their actions originate from some deep emotional problems or something. But then all of this is invalidated when every character appears objectively cruel for their lack of remorse for the gang leader’s death. Jim complains that his parents show no concern for the boy’s death but then proceeds to spend the night with the dead boy’s girlfriend. In instances like this, Ray’s bizarre balance between sinister “darker-side-of-the-idyllic-1950’s” elements and his fidelity to 50’s pleasantness creates a contradiction that makes the film appear very incoherent.
I think that, paradoxically, it is only because “Rebel without a Cause” has not aged well that it can remain relevant. It is because it’s such a fumbling, inarticulate mess that its execution matches its protagonist exactly. RWAC can be relatable to all teens because its character has intense but confused feelings about something just as the film attempts to have some sort of subversive message but fails to be clear. Jim is not a cool, tough rebel as the title might suggest but an immature confused teen. His “rebellion” against his parents is kind of embarrassing to watch with such silly, contrived lines as “you’re tearing me apart.” Jim is imperfect, confused, and contradictory and so is the film and so is this blog response. I think every teen feels that way about himself very potently.