a person has only made three movies, there will be no so-called masterpieces, because every one is, but What people can remember is often the one with the coolest name. For James Dean, of course, it was "Rebel Without a Cause" (Rebel Without a Cause).
"Rebellion without a Cause" was originally a psychology monograph, which explored the problem of juvenile delinquency. It was because the name was so well chosen that the film company was tempted to sign such a serious social science book. When the film was introduced to the East, the title of the film was also translated quite differently. Taiwan was translated into "Adopted Son Doesn't Teach Who's Fault", and Hong Kong was "A Fei's True Story". Later, in order to cherish the memory of the "wild heart" era, Wong Kar-wai simply moved the Hong Kong name directly. In fact, he was not born when the film was released.
The filming of "Rebellion Without a Cause" started in March 1955. Director Nicholas Ray had already had a small accomplishment at that time. He filmed "Lonely Place" for Humphrey Bogart, the number one cool man in Hollywood. Of course, this is not enough to make him an idol for generations of film apostates such as Godard, Wenders and Jamus. Before the filming started, Lei had only the title and a few cases of juvenile delinquency. In order to achieve the effect of "a Greek tragedy with a sense of space", he fired two screenwriters in three months, and was eventually pressured by time. Only barely passed the script.
"Rebellion without a Cause" converts to the "three-unity" of traditional drama. The story takes place within 24 hours, from the beginning of a dark night to the end of another dark night. Because of an accident, three high school students, Jim, Judy, and Plato, left the home that disappointed them, and a famous youth escape began.
James Dean’s Jim is the only child from a middle class family. Like many troublesome teenagers, he cannot blend into the world around him. He despises his mother-in-law father and nagging mother. "A boy wants to become a man as soon as possible", this is a note that Lei wrote when he was creating the script. Later, after watching "Rebellion Without Cause", a young man in a small town decided to leave his hometown to make trouble. He wrote in his song "How many roads must be taken to become a real man". On the cover of the record, he wore the same jeans and jacket as James Dean, and he changed his name to Bob Dylan.
Long before the script was completed, Ray decided that James Dean was the right person to play Jim. Dean had appeared in Ilia Kazan's "Eden of Eden", and his confused and melancholy personal temperament was in line with "rebellion without a cause." Standards. Later, Ray recalled that he and Dean met for the first time and felt disappointed because the young man had no cold on other topics except racing, and finally had nothing to say. Intuitively, Lei did not give up his decision. When the film started, Dean had become a frequent visitor to his family. The two often talked all night in the living room, and were even written as gossip by the tabloid reporter. Dean thinks that Lei’s living room has given him so much inspiration that he asked Jim’s living room in the movie to be completely imitated. Only then did Dean beat his dad in the classic passage.
In Lei's vision, "Rebellion Without a Cause" wanted to use a group of bad boys in real life, and even invited the head of the local violent group "Athens" in Hollywood to serve as "technical guidance." The heroine Judy is a typical precocious bad girl. The child star Natalie Wood, who is looking forward to transformation, is eager for this role, but Ray's goal is to find a girl who is more serious. So, Natalie Wood and her boyfriend Dennis Hope (the one who later shot "Easy Rider") drank and drove into a tree. The first thing they did after they were admitted to the hospital was to call Ray. . Soon, Wood, who was less than 17 years old, became the heroine of "Rebellion Without a Cause", and her boyfriend was replaced by Ray, who was 27 years older than him. The unlucky Dennis Hope still has to run tricks in the film. After Ray's deletion, there are only less than three lines left in his lines.
The filming of the film did not go smoothly. Due to the requirements of the widescreen format, the black and white film that had been shot for a few days was forced to be remade in color; the working hours of the two non-adult actors, Natalie Wood and Cere Minho, cannot exceed 8 o'clock in the evening; Out of budget and electronic inspection review considerations, Warner Corporation continued to make demands on the plot... At the end of May 1955, the filming of "Rebellion Without a Cause" was completed, and the accompanying misfortune seemed to have just begun.
On September 30, 1955, James Dean ended the filming of another film "Giant", driving a Porsche Spyder sports car to participate in a race, and he was killed on a California highway when he collided with a truck on the opposite side. . Three hours ago, Dean also got a ticket for speeding. The most famous car accident in Hollywood was later copied by the Canadian wizard Conan Berger in "Crash". According to records, the scene was extremely tragic.
A month later, "Rebellion Without a Cause" was released. The young man began to lament the rebellious idol who died early. Airplane heads, jeans, white T-shirts, red jackets, and Swiss army knives have all become trademarks of the times. And all of this, James Dean can't see it anymore, he can't even imagine that people love him far more than Marlon Brando. Of course, Dean could not foresee that he would be nominated for Oscar twice after his death. His real goal is actually to be a director.
Because of "Rebellion Without a Cause", Natalie Wood successfully entered the ranks of adult actors. She also became a sweetheart in Hollywood for a time and played the role of "West Side Story". On Thanksgiving Day in 1981, Wood and her husband Robert Wagner went on a private yacht. That night Wagner and his friends were drunk. Wood mysteriously disappeared from the boat. It was not until the next morning that her drowned body was found on the shore. Natalie Wood is naturally afraid of water, and finally this ending has become a mystery.
Plato, the fragile and neurotic boy in "Rebellion Without a Cause", eventually fell under the gun of the police, and his actor, Ser Minho, also died. In February 1976, Minho, who was at the peak of his career, was stabbed to death in front of his apartment, and he always believed that he could talk to the soul of James Dean. The gossip followed, and the most wicked thing was a homosexual murder. The participant was the beautiful Swedish boy Bourne Anderson who starred in "Dead in Venice". Later, Anderson declared in Europe that he had never been to the United States. And it took decades to prove his sexuality. Three years later, the murderer who assassinated Minho was arrested, confessing that the case was just an ordinary robbery, and he didn't even know that the victim was an actor.
Half a century later, "Rebellion Without Cause" is more like a cultural symbol, the world in the eyes of a teenager, and even smells with "young spirit". At the same time, it seems like a terrible curse that caused the three protagonists to pass away prematurely. James Dean is 24 years old, Ser Minho is 37 years old, and Natalie Wood is only 43 years old. Just like the song the Eagles wrote for Dean, "Too Fast to Live Too Young to Die"-live too fast, die too early. Every one of them is.
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