A Rebel on Sunday
I WANT TO WRITE ALL THESE IDEAS DOWN BEFORE I FORGET this unforgettable day -- a day spent in squalor watching the big screen, hearing the reel spinning, brightened 50-year-old celluloid flickering before our eyes, revealing the magic that will always be the movies. This year marks the first time in over 30 years that movies play at the historic Plaza theater (Trust me, the history is kind of drawled out and boring, though the theater itself, in all its art deco spectacle, is admittedly pretty fancy). Anyway, the however-formed Plaza Theater Film Festival Committee actually got permission to borrow/hoard original 35 mm prints of classics such as The Wizard of Oz, Casablanca, 2001: A Space Odyssey, King Kong, Giant, and nearly 60 others so they could be screened daily for 10 glorious days in August. For nearly two weeks I almost hoped I'd be fired from/quit my job so I could catch all of them. But alas, I need financial sustenance aka gas money so I could make it all the way to the Plaza Theater in the first place.
James Dean. What other name would silence a movie house? Which other movie idol is greater than he or more legendary? What's more, how could anyone turn down the chance to watch him on the big screen, the way audiences everywhere had first seen him play the role that immortalized him? I clutched my ticket eagerly as we waited in a line that stretched around the block.
I'd seen Rebel Without a Cause before, in my high school history class, as a way of showing us all perhaps some kind of archetype for the way we were (as teens). Many of my peers did not agree with its logic, nor did they think the movie was all that good. I held out, waiting for this film to give me some answers, since it was touted to be the first real film about what it was to be a teenager. I was affected, but at the same time freaked out at its unabashed and semi-crazed main characters. Now, I think I get it, though I am no longer a teenager. It's an old-fashioned movie that tried hard to depict the things inner-torment does to the trapped adolescent mind. "Eagerness" could be a key word, as could "restless." I could describe my teen years this way, though separated from Rebel by half a century. I didn't know at the time how to describe what it was. But neither did Jim Stark or Plato or Judy. Also, given the context of 50s era America and the rise of fear that gave way to the 60s, it is not surprising that this movie was made. Rather, it was just waiting for someone to play the role genuinely. It is a shame that there is no one to do this in the cinema of today as James had done in the early 50s. We do get teen movies, no doubt. Several examples include Juno, whimsy smash hit/strange dialogue. Thumbsucker, underdog and underseen performances. Clueless, pleasant updated adaptation. American Pie, High School Musical, spare me. Carrie, The Exorcist, heavy on the metaphor and bloody terror. Thirteen, though I do truly hate that movie, makes for a pretty close race in the quest to uncover the secrets of adolescence, but in the end, Rebel Without a Cause is what these movies cannot be. Sincere.
Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to fit all of these other ideas in without sounding pedantic. These topics are perhaps best left for the blog whenever I reprise the subject.
- The Father/Son relationship
- Teenagers' understanding of life
- James Dean and the Beats movement
- My James Dean movie I bought on Amazon
If there is one thing I am certain of gaining from this experience, it's the hope that they'll do this all again next year.
