The James Dean Story (1957)

best movie i've ever seen.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

If you know anything about James Dean, then this movie will probably not add much to your knowledge. What we see of Dean is mainly through still photographs. Most of these are just portraits that add little to the film, but there is an occasional one that surprises, like a nice one of Dean enjoying himself in a ballet class. The scene of real interest, which is saved for the end, is from a black-and-white audition Dean did for "East of Eden."The tone of the narration would be appropriate for the biopic of a saint--you are made to think that Dean's early death was some sort of national calamity. There are several interviews with some of Dean's relatives, friends, and even some restaurant owners and taxi drivers. The depth of the questioning is often inane, such as when the interviewer asks the restaurant owners, "How was his appetite?" We watch as a previous friend rummages through a box of Dean's miscellaneous stuff like phone numbers and a note from his laundry. It seems that everything that Dean touched was sacred. We don't even get any insights from Dean's girlfriend, the one with whom, "for the first time he found the timid belief that life was possible." The most frustrating thing about this film is the narration's constant speculations about Dean's motivations and thoughts. For example, consider this, "He took his envy to the beach. He looked at the ocean and he was jealous of its power. He envied the gulls for having found each other. He envied them their freedom and their solitary flights. Suddenly he knew that as an actor he could be the ocean and flood everything with his power. As an actor he could be a gull." A good part of the movie is filled with such florid prose that has no basis in fact. Amid all of the speculations there is none about the common one of Dean's being homosexual, or bisexual. He supposedly avoided the draft by registering as a homosexual.The main question I have always had about Dean is the extent to which he manufactured his own myth of being the sensitive, misunderstood, moody, independent intellectual. This film got me no closer to answering that.

Perceptions will vary wildly about this film and may parallel some misunderstandings of who Dean was: Unless you have an intuitive view, you might think of Dean as arrogant or standoffish...the icon you see in posters of "rebel". In reality he was shy, tender, yet very driven to constant self-exploration. This documentary, shot not long after Dean's passing, successfully tells his story through his real friends and family. Hollywood apparently no longer aspires to make this kind of honest film without the sensationalism and innuendo heaped in for "box office". Back in '57 folks didn't cry on cue just to prove the depth of their sentiments while being interviewed. Yet one can plainly feel the love felt and the deep impression Dean made on those around him. Altman and George reveal that the "rebel" aspect attributed to Dean was not some sort of love of violence (a la today's Pulp Fiction), but was Dean's expression of loneliness and search for acceptance...much like the character Cal in East of Eden.

I watched the movie because Robert Altman directed it, but I'd assumed it was going to be a straight forward documentary of Dean's life. Then about half way through it something didn't feel right. The people being interviewed spoke like they were on automatic pilot and the childhood photographs chosen for the movie had the quality of a spoof. I watched it a second time and realized it was Altman's documentary of the American Celebrity Cult, not James Dean. Our devotion to movie actors was reaching a new zenith in the 1950's and the life and death of Dean was a timely example of it. It's a movie about us in the same way Nashville is, or A Wedding, or Short Cuts.

This 1957 documentary was thrown together to capitalize on the Dean legend and hopefully cash in on it. Out of luck - even Dean's ardent fans avoided this turkey. Using still photography and a morose narrator, Martin Gabel, this contains little useful information not already known about Dean. Interviews with family and neighbors back home shed little light - they are so terminally dull and brimming with flat affect, one is astonished that Dean's fluidity of expression and sensitivity grew out of this environment. Of some value is an outtake from EAST OF EDEN (presented here in dimly lit black and white) between Dean and Davalos. It's a gruelling 82 minutes.