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."
Also, early in his essay, Ebert claims that "the film has not aged well." Do you agree or disagree? Give me one paragraph that tells me why (with evidence from the film).
Roger Ebert’s has said about Nicholas Ray’s film, Rebel Without a Cause: "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." This is true, but I do not think that this is due to any flaw in the design of the film, rather, it is the point of the film. As a character, Stark does not appear to have any truly strong reason to rebel. He lives a comfortable life in the suburbs, with an upper-middle class family. His parents love and take care of him, he has a car, and there is really nothing against him. Yet at the same time, he does not fit into the image created by the teenagers around him who have their own false sense of superiority. Rather, he is deemed an outsider, one who fits in with the social pariahs like Plato, therefore he is deemed by society a “rebel”.
ReplyDeleteThe film is a masterpiece of its time and while many films can be viewed as such, it still does not detract from the profoundness and impact of the film. Regardless of the passage of time, “Rebel Without a Cause” has maintained its importance and relevance. The film doesn’t necessarily know what it is trying to say, and this exasperated attempt to say something is reflected in Jim Stark’s era, where there is a widespread inability to say much of anything. However, this can easily be translated to any number of circumstances from any era or any generation. Jim Stark is a restless youth, who just happens to be restless in the world of phoniness. This theme of a generation of restless youth has proved to be a timeless one seeing as it is applicable to the present and probably the future as well..
So to say that "the film has not aged well" is an oblivious statement. Maybe one can place a date on the performance, or the camera style, but one cannot label “Rebel Without a Cause” as not existing in the present time. The past, whether it is remembered through literature, painting, or films, is just as important as the present and future. “Rebel Without a Cause” may be just a snapshot of its time, a brief glimpse into the life of an adolescent in the 1950s, but it can still be applied to today and to the future, so it has aged along with each generation; it still has relevance to all youth.
ReplyDeleteNicholas Ray’s 1955 masterpiece “Rebel Without a Cause” portrays, as the title suggests, a peculiar breed of rebel who acts without having a concrete cause, or, rather, a typically justifiable cause. Jim Stark, acting as the embodiment of many American teenagers at the time and perhaps today, is anxious and unfulfilled, despite having nothing particularly wrong with his life in the objective view. Due to his anxiety, he lashes out at those around him in an attempt to express something he cannot explain: his emotions. Rebel, similarly, is unable to fully convey Jim’s problems to the audience, for those problems are related to the teenage psyche and cannot be explicitly translated to film. It can thus be claimed that "like its hero, Rebel Without a Cause desperately wants to say something and doesn't know what it is.” However, as Ebert points out, this is the source of the film’s appeal.
Rebel’s inability to say something, or convey a concrete problem, parallels the inexplicable discontent that teenagers often feel. We are frustrated with our parents’ lack of understanding (as Jim and Judy are), the society we live in, and the complex relationships and codes of our peers. Often, though, we have no justification to be, as we have it much better than many others, and without a way to accurately articulate the issues we do have without seeming self-centered, we merely add to this frustration. These inner tensions then lead to rebellion, be it sneaking out, trespassing in a mansion, or taking part in a knife fight, to list examples nowadays only seen in movies like Rebel. To adults like our parents, these actions may appear not to have any cause, but the cause stems from the desire to understand ourselves and our emotions, and be understood by others. This tendency has not died since Rebel and renders the film easily relatable to the youth of all ages since.
Despite to the similarities between the teenagers in Rebel and modern-day teenagers, I agree that, to a degree, Rebel has indeed not aged well. While the theme of inexplicable inner tensions and the consequences thereof still resonates with today’s audiences, the details of the film, specifically those dealing with the time period, have shifted focus away from universal themes, at least in my mind. I found the premise of knife-fights, “Chicken”, and loads of popular kids filling all available space in a convertible, despite the truthfulness to the era, to be distracting and the film became in my mind more of an antiquated thrill-ride. While, as I said, the universal message still caught on, I believe the impact would have been stronger if I had been alive in that era, or if a proper modern-day adaptation of Rebel was produced.
In Roger Ebert’s review of Rebel Without a Cause he makes the point that Jim’s demeanor masks his overall feeling that, “life is a pointless choice between being and not being.” This could explain the frivalrous nature of Jim, as well as his unkempt carelessness as characterized by a drag race to the edge of a cliff, and an impromptu knife fight between a rival group of teenagers. The film in it of itself is extremely odd, but because it is odd, certain societal concerns are brought to light in a new and refreshing way. For instance there is one point in the film where Jim’s dad is wearing a, “frilly apron,” to clean up a spill. From a feminist point of view this seems like role reversal in that the apron makes Jim’s father seem more feminine due to its appearance. But at the same time I have trouble deciding whether this gives or retracts power from the female (Jim’s mom) in the film, in that the task that Jim’s father is carrying out is a traditional stereotype for a housewife, in modern times, a degrading blow to the capabilities of women worldwide. Given the time frame I’d like to think that Ray was attempting to merely throw things askew to get his audience thinking, which perfectly coalesces with the quote that this blog response seeks to explore: "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." On a semi-related note, I recently read an article about a movement for all books to be plastered with, “trigger warnings,” and can’t help but notice the parallels between my feelings about that movement and the idea that the film at hand worked so well because of its vague purpose. Beauty exists within ambiguity, and I feel as if Rebel WIthout a Cause brings this statement to life. When everything is cut and dry, and there are so many forms of art of all different media that follow an obvious scheme of implicit meanings through very explicit symbols, a film like Rebel Without a Cause is sort of refreshing. So often are we fed shortcuts to information, disallowing us to think for ourselves, rather turning to computers and technology to be our out-of-body brains. That is little motion to question what we have adopted as the social-norm, even in the instance that this “norm,” is something so foreign to the core of our own ethical beliefs, morals, and values.
ReplyDeleteWhere most films about adolescence incorporate parables that one learns as they are journeying to adulthood, this film captures blatant delinquency among the three kids, Jim being the point of the trifecta. The principle of simplicity holds that sometimes the simplest answer is the most adequate and the most effective/efficient. By this, a sequence of events of which juvenile delinquents take part in, spilled across the big screen as one long show sort of forces you to understand that there is a sort of simplicity that comes with being a member of the population of youth in the world. The contrast of the naive youth against the continually worried and frantic parents emphasizes the glamour of a childhood, and in the same instance, the drive to be rebellious despite having everything you could possibly want or need in the world. He had the girl, he had the car, he had the friends, but nothing would stop him from being a rebel without a cause.
Well, as previously stated I really enjoy this unspoken simplicity that emanates from the film; however, there are certain elements that become blurred and fuzzy as time progresses. For instance, societal relations, and continually, family dynamics were far different in the time this film was shot in than the way family dynamics are now. The only time we see knife fights are in underdeveloped areas of urban cities amongst those stricken with poverty or those who have resorted to join gangs and perpetuate gang violence. The role bending of genders-the meaning is also unclear as time progresses, but this was discussed previously. In some ways I agree that this film has not aged well’; however it has a sort of Golden quality that makes it majorly timeless.
DeleteIf you’re characters are angsty teenagers, then you’d better have the same problems they have. As such, Ebert’s quote on Rebel applies really well; the movie, like Jim, doesn’t have any concrete problems, but rather more existential ones. In fact, the movie feels almost like a dream sequence; the kids go through the motions of everyday living, trying to figure out their place in life without knowing how to express what they feel (and not really even knowing what they’re feeling). This gives the movie that dream-like feel; the kids almost seem to float through the movie. The issues Jim faces are not really concrete issues, but more existential ones; as none of the teens really know how they fit into the world, they become frustrated, but since there appears to be no outward reason for the frustration (nor any way to really express it), the kids become even more frustrated, leading to the boiling point events of the film. As Buzz puts it: “You gotta do something”. Because there are no concrete issues in the movie, we can reflect our own struggles onto it; giving Jim a solid issue to overcome would make the film into simply an underdog story, as opposed to being a movie that asks universal questions.
ReplyDeleteThe film is indeed dated (knife fights? Chicken runs?). However, being dated does not automatically mean that it hasn’t aged well. Because the issues that Jim and Plato address are the same issues many teens still face today, the movie can still be viewed in a modern setting, and you can still really identify with it’s characters. It also helps that Dean’s performance is remarkably understated and subtle for when it came out. So, if you ignore the more decade-specific aspects of the film, I think it has still aged remarkably well - or at least, better than Ebert says.
To say Rebel Without a Cause “doesn’t know what it is” is one way to express the feeling and emotion one gets after viewing the film. It’s definitely hard to depict the inner meaning of the film after just one viewing. In a way Rebel Without a Cause is both simplistic and complex. The quote from Roger Ebert states that the film “hasn’t aged well” can be agreed and disagreed with. In the simplistic form of the film yes the film really hasn’t aged well with its overacting and played out male & female stereotypes. It can be seen as a simple film on surface level with machismo men racing off cliffs and the dark and mysterious outsider who comes in to get the girl. The whole story on surface level is very cliché and predictable. But it is when a deeper look is taken into the film that it becomes more complex.
ReplyDeleteI also disagree with the quote because with the overacting and stereotypes comes what can be interpreted as the real meaning: what it is to be a teenager. Sure the film can look cliché from the surface but as a teenager I know these characters are still relatable today because of the films complexities. The use of the color red for example as a symbol of rebellion is a strong point the plot makes to help the viewer relate to the troubled teenagers. The feelings every character shows and the family dynamics are still commonplace in the world today.But through both these paragraphs it is shown that the film contradicts itself wanting to be both complex and simplistic but ending up not knowing what it is.
-Adil Kadwa
ReplyDeleteRobert Ebert said “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.” I am in agreement with this statement but I believe that this is done on purpose. Our protagonist, the rebel, has no incentive to be a rebel. He has everything one would want and need. Upper class family, a car, loving people beside him, etc. Yet, for reasons unknown, he is considered an outcast, forcing him to become the rebellious character he is.
I do not agree with the claim that the film did not age well. The film excellently portrays the mindset of the youth in nearly every generation. As a result of this, Rebel Without a Cause remains important. The rebel character is deep within all of us on some level as young adults. And since there will always be more generations (I don’t mean this in a literal sense) Rebel Without a Cause will remain important. Rebel Without a Cause ages like wine. To say that the film has not aged well is an idiotic thing to say. Yes, you can date the release or the style of film or the era of film which this film belongs to but the teenage angst it captures is something found in the past, present and most likely future.
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.