United States

The film and the actor that spoke for a whole generation. Rebel Without A Cause takes us into the center of an exploding teenage universe, a world of 1950's "juvenile violence", of ritualistic knife fights and terrifying "chickie runs" in stolen cars. It shows us members of that universe: the gang leader, the angry rejected girl, the doomed outsider. Most of all it tells the story of one individual, Jim Stark, who must grope his way through this universe alone. When director Nicholas Ray cast James Dean as Jim Stark, he gave Dean a completely free hand in the interpretation of his role. It was a wise decision Dean brought an intense and total commitment to the film, providing much of its energy and integrity. It was Dean's idea, for example, to curl up like a fetus in his opening scene, suggesting a loneliness that sets the tone of the events to come. Throughout, Dean continued to add touches of his own, conveying with particular sensitivity Jim Stark's confrontations with his ineffectual father and the anguish of being a "new boy" at school. Other creative risks were involved in the filming of Rebel Without A Cause. Nicholas Ray was the first director to portray juvenile deliquency [sic] in the middle class. He gave Sal Mineo his first screen role, Natalie Wood her first adult role (both received 1956 Academy Award nominations), and Jim Backus his first serious role. He filmed two weeks of what must be the only Cinema-Scope movie ever shot in black and white, then switched to color, adding various color symbols to reinforce his themes. Ray's behind-the-scenes decisions, his extraordinary collaboration with his young actors, and his long hours of research with actual teenage case histories make up the unusual background of this film. In the foreground, always, is James Dean's compelling journey, through a day and a night of pain and destruction, to adulthood.