In 1955, the film "East of Eden", based on the novel of the famous American writer John Steinbeck and Nobel Prize winner, was a profound and powerful family ethics film. The film won an award at the Cannes Film Festival in France in the same year. James Dean plays Carl in the play. This is his first leading role. He performed the youth's desire for fatherly love very well. In the climax scene where his father refused to accept the birthday gift, Dean played on the spot and forced Raymond Massey, who played the role of his father, to react realistically. This is considered a classic case of "methodist" acting.
East of Eden has a very detailed discussion on the complex feelings between father and son. Although the rhythm is too slow, the plot is abundant. James Dean, Julie Harris and Joe Van Fleet are in this film. Outstanding performance is almost impeccable. At the same time, this film is also a blockbuster work by James Dean. His sentimental and rebellious youth style swept the world in the 1950s, and it is still shocking today. Someone commented that James Dean "is both a boy and a man; he is gentle and violent; slender and tenacious; both arrogant and weak. He has created a new sexy model with a bit of The evil and dangerous eyes tease the lens and seduce the world." James Dean in the film does have this charm, frowning brows, pale and beautiful face, slightly weak young body, sometimes surly and sometimes pure eyes. The hardness and softness of the corners of the mouth overflowed, which made people feel distressed.
In "East of Eden", Carl, played by Dean, has a rebellious mother who runs away from home to become a bustard, a father who "lives in the Bible", the brother of a good son in the eyes of his father, and he himself is withdrawn. , Surly, a bad son who is not recognized by his father. When Karl learned the news that his mother was still alive from the stranger in the bar, he followed the mother who had never met from time to time, eager to talk to her. "Is she willing to talk to me?" "I just want to talk to her." When he was misunderstood and brutally blocked, the sadness in his eyes had nowhere to hide. What a humble desire to talk. "Anyone can become vicious, as long as you have tried what is called jealousy." Carl's jealousy of his father's favorite brother Allen did not make him vicious. It only made him more heartbroken and hurt him. After seeing the scene where Alan and his girlfriend Abola were together, he had to push the ice cube downstairs to vent his depression. His father had an indisputable feeling for Carl. He asked him to read the Bible and confess, and this caused Carl's disgust. A dialogue that seemed to be a little bit of communication and tenderness ended in Carl's door slamming. The relationship between the father and the son remained. Alienation can't get rid of the model of strict father against son.
Carl has been seeking his father's love from beginning to end. In order to make up for the loss of his father's lettuce business, he asked his mother to borrow money to partner with someone in the soybean business. This time, he followed the woman and did not evoke a scream of consternation. The mother and son had a formal conversation. Carl quietly listened to his mother's recount of the past, sometimes showing a charming and embarrassing appearance. When the mother said that his father "live" "In Bible", his slight chuckle is too cute. The mother said, "You are a likable child", and it is true. The next scene was very interesting. Carl lay down in the bean sprouts field, urging the beans to grow up quickly, jumping around in the field like a dance, the extreme cuteness. A word that Ebola said to Carl on the Ferris wheel in the amusement park touched the hidden illness deep in Carl's heart. Carl held a birthday party for his father full of hope and gave the money he earned as a gift to his father. At the same time, Alan unexpectedly announced his engagement with Abola as a birthday gift to his father. His father said there was nothing like this. It's a better gift, and Carl's expression is a little disappointed and jealous. At this time, Ebola, who knew Carl’s concerns, urged her father to open the gift, but unexpectedly her father refused to accept it. He also taught Carl, "If you give me a gift like your brother, I will be very happy, and be more kind and human. ..." Carl bent his waist in pain at this moment. He turned around, embracing his father with his hands around his father's shoulders fragilely like a child. He couldn't cry. The father didn't comfort him at this time, but shouted sharply. "Carl, Carl!" "I hate you!" Carl turned in despair and staggered out the door, hiding in the shadow of the tree. Dean was heartbreaking at this moment.
The collapsed Carl took Alan, who had always thought his mother was dead, to meet with his mother. Alan got so drunk by the tremendous stimulation and resolutely went to join the war that he had been opposed to before. Father rushed to the train station and suffered a stroke. He fell into Carl's arms, who came afterwards. After Carl returned from shutting his brother and mother in the room, he said to his father on the porch, "I have been jealous all my life. I can't stand the jealousy. I even want to buy your love back tonight, but now I don't want it anymore. Now, I don't need any kind of love anymore, it's not worth it." Heartbroken and desperate Karl. After his father had a stroke, Carl was deeply bitter and regretful, but he was afraid of being rejected by his father again. Ebola saw Carl in her eyes, full of compassion and love. She told the bedridden old man about Carl’s pain. “It’s really painful not to be loved. That’s the worst thing in the world. Makes you bad and cruel, and that's how Carl feels." "You never loved him, and you didn't want his love. You never asked him to do anything." With Abola's encouragement, Carl When he walked into the room, he was talking about his father's previous teachings in his father's ear. Yes, he remembered all of them, but he didn't want to do that when he didn't feel the love. The father moved his mouth and said softly, "Do something for me, that woman, I can't stand her, change me a nurse." "I can't stand her either." Carl leaned to his father's mouth and heard his whisper. After smiling very relievedly, he got up and said to Ebola excitedly, "He said,'Don't want anyone else, you stay by my side, you will take care of me'". At this point, all the feelings have come to a successful conclusion, and Karl finally got the father's love he wanted, and he also got the love of Abraham.
Suddenly I felt that "love" is really a heavy word. The feeling of being needed and loved by others is too important to Carl. Isn’t that for any of us? People who obviously love each other always hurt each other. The deeper the love, the deeper the hurt. In many cases, what people lack is not love, but not knowing how to love and how to express love. Carl's father, doesn't he love Carl's mother, doesn't he love Carl? He was hurt so deeply by his wife, but he was full of praise for her in front of his son; Carl did something wrong, but he didn't admit his mistake, he just used the Bible to influence him, and he would feel guilty even if he lost his temper a little. Where did he go wrong? He doesn't know how to express his love; he doesn't understand how important it is to express love to his son; he doesn't understand how much his son needs to know his love. In this world, it is not enough to have love in the heart, otherwise there will not be so many misunderstandings and so many tragedies that make people feel sad. In many cases, it may be more important to communicate, express, and try to understand others and let others understand you. Just like Ebola, she was afraid of Carl at first, but fell in love with him in the end. She was afraid because she didn't understand him, and loved because she finally understood him.
The director Ilya Kazan is very powerful, Steinbeck is such an ambitious masterpiece, he changed it into a melodrama of less than 2 hours, directly from Karl's search for mother, the emotional entanglement between brothers, father and son, mother and son, and men and women. Everything is covered. James Dean fits Karl, a kid with evil nature and angel face, and his characters in "Giant's Biography" and "Rebellion Without Cause" are also very similar to Karl. In the filming of "East of Eden", Ilya Kazan used the spirit of method-based acting to the extreme. In reality, James Dean gets along very badly with Raymond Marcy, who plays his father, but Kazan Not only did not try to eliminate the contradiction, but deliberately actively encouraged it, so that when the father and son conflict in the filming of "Eden of Eden", the acting skills of both parties produced shocking special effects.
James Dean always arouses extreme emotions: the people with whom he has interacted either adored and admired him fanatically, or hated and cursed him strongly. Julie Harris, the heroine of "Eden of Eden", said he was as naughty and cute as Tom Sawyer; Dennis Hopper had great admiration for him, "He was 20 years ahead of that era"; and in the director Nicholas Ray In his eyes, his ability "cannot be compared with any actor in the past or present." But for Ilya Kazan and George Stevens, the experience of filming with him was a nightmare. George Stevens even gritted his teeth and vowed to never let James Dean perform him again. Director's movie. Since he still borrowed the nameless actor, the accusations of his rude and grotesque temper have not stopped. And these evaluations, whether cold or hot, are actually not important to him. Dean lives in his own world. He doesn't care what others think of him. It can even be said that he doesn't care about anyone around him. From the day his mother died, he became alone. He is not good at communicating with people, afraid of being hurt, and always guards himself very vigilantly, and finally completely retreats into his own small world. When he first came to Hollywood to film East of Eden, he carried a gun with him. When he was not filming, he would not talk to people and often stayed alone in the dressing room. When it came time to film his last movie, "Giant," he would quietly avoid the crowd and drive the jeep to catch the hare by himself in the middle of the night.
Hollywood's glorious Vanity Fair is far away from him. In fact, there has never been a place where he can feel of belonging, and no one can maintain a long-term close relationship with him. People say he is bisexual, hangs around gay bars, and indulges himself in the binge of sex and alcohol. But even so, his eyes still showed loneliness, and he often suddenly fell into contemplation, concentrating in meditation like no one else. Perhaps only acting is his only way to vent. He has completely integrated the sadness in his heart into the role, so his lonely eyes on the screen are heartbreaking, like a homeless child. Many people say that James Dean is famous for imitating Marlon Brando. Although Dean has not admitted publicly, he does admire Brando privately. During the filming of "East of Eden", Ilya Kazan introduced Dean to Brando, who was trying to copy his performance and life style at the time. Brando recalled that meeting, and he clearly felt that Dean was experiencing the panic he had experienced, standing on the threshold of Hollywood's colorful world at a loss.
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