James Dean

September 30 is the 50th anniversary of the death of actor James Dean, who died tragically in a car wreck at the age of 24, after filming just three movies. It's practically unheard of for an actor to have the kind of impact Dean had on both youth culture and film after such a short career, but Dean's appeal hasn't diminished with the passing years.

Northwest Film Forum (NWFF)  is celebrating Dean this month with screenings of two of his films, Rebel Without a Cause and East of Eden. (I wish they were showing Giant, too - the Dean trifecta!) At this Friday's first screening of Rebel, audience members were treated to a special guest - screenwriter Stewart Stern was on hand to share some personal stories about the film and field some questions from the packed house.

NWFF programming director Jaime Keeling was on hand prior to the screening to do a brief intro. But first, the audience got to see a rare treat - a vintage public service announcement about safe driving with James Dean, shot shortly before his death. The PSA was shot during the filming of Giant, Dean's last film.

One of the most immediately noticeable things about it was the striking difference in acting style between the very stiff 1950s actor ("Well, now, Jimmy, what do you have to tell the kids about fast driving?") and Dean (who had trained at The Actors Studio, which was co-founded by Elia Kazan). Even in this little PSA, Dean just radiated incredble talent on the screen.

The other notable thing about the PSA, of course, is its irony - we see James Dean, in all his youth and glory, casually discussing with Mr. Stiff Suitwearer how, since he got into racing cars, he no longer drives fast on the highway, because that's dangerous, kids. At the end, instead of giving the usual PSA closing line of, "And remember, the life you save may be your own", Dean gives the camera that patented lazy smile so mimicked by actors in the 50 years since his death and drawls, "And remember, kids - the life you save may be mine".

Keeling then went on in her intro to tell the audience that shortly after this PSA was filmed, Dean was killed while driving his silver Porsche Spyder to a race, and that he was driving over 100 miles an hour when a 19-year-old driver turned left in front of him. Dean's mechanic, Keeling told us, was in the car with Dean, and later reported that Dean saw the kid about to turn in front of him and said, "Oh, he'll see us, he'll stop, he'll stop"; the mechanic, who wasn't wearing a seatbelt, was thrown from the car and lived. Dean, as the driver, was strapped into the requisite racing seat belt, and was killed.

I was sitting next to Stern for the screening, and it was painful to watch his quiet reaction to seeing the PSA and hearing Keeling discuss Dean's death; 50 years later, the subject of his friend's death still brings tears to his eyes. Following the PSA, we got to see the original trailer for East of Eden, which screens at NWFF next week, and then, finally, the film started.

I've seen Rebel several times, of course, and I'm working from the assumption that you've seen it too (if you haven't, get thee to your local movie store or library and get the DVD already). This, though was my first chance to see it at a theater, on a big screen, and it was well worth it. Seeing Dean, Natalie Wood, and Sal Mineo up there, larger than life, every twitch of a lip or eyebrow is even more imbued with meaning, and the subtle beauty of all three actors' performances is enhanced.

What was most struck me, as I stole surreptitous glances at the faces in the capacity crowd, including Stern's, was how amazingly relevant this film is half a century after it was made. If he'd lived, James Dean would have turned 74 in February; as the eternal teenager of his three great films, he lives on and inspires new generations of young people. There were older folks in the crowd, probably people who remembered seeing Rebel when it first came out, who wanted to relive the film and have a chance to hear Stern speak about it. But there were also an equal number of younger folks - the 30-and-under set - who were every bit as excited to be there as the older fans.

It was fun, listening to the crowd's murmured responses to the film's great scenes - Dean's perfect opening sequence, lying drunk on the street and tucking a toy monkey into "bed" with his jacket; the subtle nuances of the police station scene - the careful use of the windows to separate the three protagonists; Wood's bright red lipstick and coat, echoed later by Dean's iconic red windbreaker and Mineo's single red sock; the beautifully choreographed knife fight scene at the Planetarium; the scene at the "chickie race" where Jim Stark and Buzz share a male bonding moment before the fatal race; the final showdown with the police.

The real highlight of the evening was listening to Stern talk to the crowd after the film. When we were walking in before the show, I asked Stern if he gets nervous at these things. He grinned and said, "Nah, not at all," and the spring in his step backed up that assertion. If anything, he seemed nervous about whether people would show up to see his film. He needn't have worried: they came out in droves.

Stern opened by talking about Dean's death, and how it is still hard for him, after all these years, to watch Rebel and see his lost friend. He talked about the shock that went through the country when Dean died, how the only thing he's ever seen that came close was John F. Kennedy's assassination. Then he got into the real meat of his talk - the differences between the film as he wrote it and the way director Nick Ray filmed it.

The opening sequence, he told us, was all Dean's idea. Dean told the director to turn the camera on so he could try something, and the opening was born. As written, the opening was much darker; it was set on Christmas Eve, not Easter, and it opened with a man walking along, heavily laden with presents, when he is surrounded by a gang of hoodlums. They knock the man's gifts to the ground and set him on fire, and he runs to the house he was heading to for help. The hoodlums scatter, and a drunken Jim Stark, who was watching from the shadows, picks up the toy monkey that fell from its package.

Dean, Stern tells us, understood inherently that the opening of the film has to set the tone, tell the audience what the story is about right away, so they know what to expect, what they are hoping for. Dean got that the whole theme of the film was about a son needing his father, and his nurturing behavior toward the toy monkey, covering it with his jacket, mirrors later scenes when Jim offers his jacket to Plato, and the closing scene, when Jim zips his red windbreaker over Plato's dead body to keep him warm, and Jim's father puts his own jacket on his son. 

The biggest conflict Stern had with director Ray during the filming, he tells us, was about the ending. Stern had gone to New York to avoid being on the set, because he didn't want to get in the way of the relationship between Dean and Ray as actor and director. But Dean, who was fresh off of filming East of Eden with directing legend Kazan, didn't fully trust Ray to direct his next film, and Stern felt that if he was on the set, Dean would turn to him instead of Ray. Stern's deal with Ray was that Ray would call him each day to discuss the filming and let him know of any changes that needed to be made.

Ray filmed a completely different ending than Stern wrote, a fact Stern didn't learn about until he saw a preview cut of the film. "I wanted to just crawl into a conduit and shoot myself in the head", he says of seeing the film's ending for the first time.

Stern's original ending had the police aware that Jim Stark was going into the Planetarium to talk to Plato, with the police not wanting him to go in and Jim's father allowing him to go - standing up for Jim and letting him be a man (a driving theme throughout the film, taken very much from Stern's relationship with his own father). In Stern's version, Jim's father calls out to him as he enters the Planetarium, "I love you!".

Stern's ending also had Jim Stark dying alongside Plato. In the original script, Jim's father runs up to him after Jim is shot and keeps saying, "Son, I need to talk to you!". "I can't, Dad, I'm busy," Jim replies. "Busy? Busy doing what?" Dad asks. "Busy dying," Jim says, and then he crawls over to Plato and dies. Listening to Stern talk about the ending, it's clear he still strongly feels that his own ending would have been better. There is an edge of bitterness, even after all these years, to his otherwise gentle voice, whenever he mentions the name of Nick Ray, although he graciously gives credit where he feels it's due.

Stern talks about the things Ray did with the film that he really liked, including the excellent choreography of the knife fight, and the tremendous work Ray put into the casting of the gang members. "He had all these kids from Hollywood coming into audition. They weren't screen tested, they were set loose on this dangerous, wobbly trusswork (after all the studio execs had gone home for the night) and told to play 'king of the mountain'. Those who made it to the top had a shot at getting cast in the film".

Stern also talked about Dean as an actor, and how once, early in shooting for Rebel, Ray yelled "Cut!" during a scene. Dean turned to Ray and told him, "No one ever says cut to me; I go until I'm done". Ray never cut him again. As Stern points out, for a young actor with only one other feature film to his name to set the terms with his director that way, speaks to Dean's remarkable confidence as an actor. He knew what he was doing, and everything he did in front of a camera he did with forethought and deliberation.

The most interesting question of the evening came from a woman seated behind me, who asked Stern about the scene between Buzz and Jim Stark before the chickie run. This is Stern's favorite scene that he's ever written, and his face lit up when she asked the question. She wanted to know how it was the Stern was so ahead of his time, writing a scene that shows the capacity of men to love each other in a non-sexual way, in the staid and uptight 1950s.

"I was in World War Two," Stern says simply. "I learned there the capacity of men to love each other, and also the way that the expectations of their peer groups can affect how they act and what they do." In Rebel, of course, Buzz, who has decided that he actually likes Jim Stark, still decides to do the chickie race that ultimately kills him, because his peers expect it. Jim participates in the race against his better judgement because, as his later tells his father, "They called me chicken, Dad. You know, chicken? If I didn't go, I could never face those kids again."

Of course, it was also the superb acting by Dean, Wood and Mineo (not to mention a great performance by Jim Backus as Jim Stark's father), that make Rebel such a great film. Would Rebel be the same film - would it still be remembered 50 years later - if Dean had been replaced by Tab Hunter or Robert Wagner, as very nearly happened when Dean disappeared shortly before filming? Would we even be sitting in this theater at a 50th anniversary screening? All I know is, I'm glad I don't know the answer to that question. Dean made the film, which endures as one of the most influential films ever made. So long as there are people who still turn out to see a screening of Rebel Without a Cause, Dean's unique spirit will never really die.