Don Maclean writes in the song “American Pie” that Bob Dylan,
the “Jester,” wore a coat “he borrowed from James Dean.” In director Nicholas
Ray’s Rebel Without a Cause, James Dean’s
Jim Stark wears literal and symbolic clothing. The jacket we see him wear for
most of the film is red. It can signify the passion of rebellious youth. The
opening sequence shows a drunken Jim on the ground with a red toy monkey, not the impression of suburban white youth shown in TV sitcoms of the time such as Father Knows Best or Leave it to Beaver. The monkey is then covered with paper, like a corpse, which is a foreshadowing image in this story. In
this one shot Ray shows a person caught between childhood (the toy) and
adulthood (the drunkenness). This film, like To Kill a Mockingbird, addresses the inevitability of losing one’s
innocence and having to be born again into the compromised and pessimistic grown-up
world.
We move to the police station where the three main
characters are brought together in the same place: Jim was arrested for his public
drunkenness; Judy (Natalie Wood), wearing a red coat, mirroring Jim's attire, was picked up for being a
minor walking around at night alone; and John “Plato” Crawford was arrested for
shooting puppies. These rebellious youths meet in a place that stands for the
enforcement of the rules with which they are at odds. Jim mimics the police
siren, a sound associated with imposing order, and a cop says, “that’s enough static out of you.” The word “static”
means noise, but it is also used to suggest opposition or criticism, which is
one of the role’s of youth. The expression, "a monkey on your back," refers to drug addiction, and thus, a destructive disease. Judy views Jim over her shoulder in her mirror compact, so his rebelliousness is like a monkey on her back.
Jim is no longer a child and must now face the disappointing
reality of his home life. We learn that he is the new kid in town, which adds
to his rootlessness, and, thus, to his insecurity. His parents always move
whenever there has been trouble in the family. Jim accuses them of always
blaming him for the relocations, but there are also problems between the mother and
father. Jim’s dad, Frank (Jim Backus – yes Mr. Magoo and the rich guy on
“Gilligan’s Island) is a wimp, (his wearing the frilly apron around the house
is an embarrassing reminder to Jim of Frank’s emasculation) never standing up
to his domineering wife (Ann Doran), or showing any decisiveness in general. The
family’s moving around suggests the inability to feel “at home” can continue
into adulthood.
Judy longs for the affection of her father (William Hopper) that
she received when she was a child. She is disappointed that he isn’t
the one picking her up at the police station. There is an incestuous subtext at
work here. She is a curvaceous young lady now, so when she gives her father a
quick kiss on the lips at home, he pushes her away in disgust. It almost
appears that he protests too much, subconsciously guilty of his own urges. But, he encourages his young son to be typically manly, and the boy has a toy gun, a phallic symbol. He is alarmed about any male contact with Judy, even if it comes from his son, who he chastises when he hugs his sister. But the child calls Judy "glamour puss" as his dad did. The confusion over sexual behavior is inserted in what we would expect to be a typical middle-class family. In contrast to Jim's father, Judy's dad is a macho type. His preoccupation with masculinity is shown on the wall of the dining room, which is covered with phallic symbols, such as swords, roosters, and horses. He
considers Judy a tramp because she stays out at night with her rowdy crowd of
friends. Her mother says when you are starting to grow up, “nothing fits.” Judy also is in-between worlds and also feels homeless.
Probably the most interesting character of all is Sal
Mineo’s Plato. He wears clothes a mother might pick out for a young boy going
to a family event. He rides a scooter which is a pale imitation of a motorcycle, and looks out of place at the high school. His parents are absent.
They have split up, and the mother is never at home. His father is rich and provides him
with material things. He sends support checks with no personalized letters to his son. The only person caring for him is the
African American nanny, which he is too old to have looking after him. He wants for nothing –
except love. So, emotionally, he, too, is caught between childhood and adulthood, and also is without a nurturing home. At the school, Plato
opens his locker, and on the door is a photo of the actor Alan Ladd, a handsome
man. He then sees Jim in the mirror on the door. It is the same over-the-shoulder view that Judy had, which emphasizes how Jim is that "monkey" on the back. Thus, Jim, although not intentionally, is a threat to Plato. Is Plato gay, like the Greek philosopher, and attracted
to Jim, who is associated in this scene with a handsome actor? But, later, Jim
is considered as a surrogate father by Plato. The latter says to him, “If you
coulda been my dad, we could have breakfast in the morning.” There is a
blending of the sexual and the paternal here, as there is with Judy. It is
meaningful that all he has of his dad is a photograph, where? - in his bedroom.
Why did Plato kill those puppies? They are not full grown dogs, but babies.
Perhaps in his life there is a disconnect between an ideal childhood and the
one he experienced. It may be he was sexually abused by his father, and he considers the
killing of the puppies an act of mercy to spare them the pain of growing up. It
is significant that his nickname references the philosopher who believed that
this world was made up of imperfect copies of almost forgotten transcendent
ideas.
Since he does not fit in at home, Jim doesn’t want to feel
like an outcast among his peers. But the first thing he does is walk on the
school’s insignia placed in the cement as he heads for class, possibly a sign
of disrespect. He tries to make fun of the planetarium presentation about the
end of the world so as to be accepted by the gang of youths. But, he is taunted by
Judy’s boyfriend, Buzz, who calls him “chicken” when he refuses to fight after
Buzz slashes the tires of Jim’s car. The accusation of being a coward is the
one thing Jim can’t stand, because it reminds him of his spineless father. He
accepts the challenge of the “chicken run” where two beat-up cars are driven
toward the edge of a cliff. The driver who jumps out first is the “chicken.” Buzz
dies because of a piece of clothing. The strap on his black leather jacket, a
symbol of rebellious youth, gets caught on the door handle and he plunges to
his death. Did his nonconformity to the approaching responsibility of adulthood seal his fate?
Jim goes home after the tragedy looking for direction as to
how to act. Again, he, too, is caught between the world of the child (he drinks
milk at home like a baby) and being forced into being an adult. He asks his
father, “What do you do when you have to be a man.” He is looking for a clear
moral compass to follow, but his dad basically tells him it isn’t that simple,
and just wants him to cover his own ass in connection with the accident. His
parents tell him that in ten years none of what has happened will be
remembered, as if to say the leaving behind of youthful idealism will fade away
as one ages.
Jim goes to the police station to talk to Sergeant Ray
(Edward Platt) who was sympathetic when Jim was arrested, but Ray is not there, another absentee father figure.
The other members of the gang think that Jim informed on them about Buzz's death, so they go after
him. Jim, Judy, and Plato go to a dilapidated mansion to hide. All three are in
a sense refugees from their homes. They play at being a family, with Jim the
father, Judy the mother, and Plato as the child. But Jim satirizes this action,
affecting an adult tone of voice, talking about renting or buying, with Judy
chiming in about their budget, and Plato saying it will only cost “three
million dollars a month.” With these words they acknowledge the absurdity of
the grown-up world. Plato says mockingly of having children, “we don’t encourage
them,” and there is dark humor about drowning children. Their words convey what they see as the animosity of parents toward their children. It also reminds the audience about the pessimism of existence depicted at the
planetarium, and echoes Plato's killing of the puppies, implying youth has a horrible time
ahead of it. At one point Plato lies down and is covered, like a child going to sleep. But he also looks like a dead body, another image of foreshadowing. Their pretending is cut short by the gang members finding them. One of the young men rattles a chain, like an evil version of a baby rattle. Plato has his gun and shoots one of the youths. Jim is able to disarm the
weapon, but Plato wants the gun back. He is killed by the police as Jim leads
him out of the mansion, since the cops don’t know there are no bullets in the
pistol.
Let’s get back to the color red and that toy monkey. The
titles at the beginning of the film are in red, and as was said, so were the
monkey and Jim’s jacket, as well as Judy’s red coat. One of Plato’s socks is
red, a mismatch which conjures up the image of a child but also hints at
tragedy, since red is also the color of blood. The "monkey" reference occurs again. When Judy looks into her compact mirror a second time, Jim asks her, “Want to see a monkey?” Jim may be the “monkey wrench” that damages the machinery of
society. Plato says to Jim that when it comes to Buzz and his friends, that he
shouldn’t “monkey with them,” another omen of the chaos to come.
So, Jim can, in one sense, be seen, inadvertently, as an “angel
of death.” At the police station he hums Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries,”
which is associated with going to the afterworld. He lives on “Angelo” street. He enters the planetarium just as the show explores the eventual cosmic end of
the world with an exploding star, and his last name is "Stark." The scientist there talks about how “the earth will not be missed,”
and “the heavens are cold,” after our planet’s demise. The youth in attendance
are startled by the flash of light that will indicate the end of existence. Why
should they not feel that life is doomed and their existence meaningless? When Judy is asked toward the
beginning of the film who is Jim Stark, she says, “He’s the new disease.” His rebelliousness is a newly arrived threat to the established order. Jim
is a participant at the scene of Buzz’s death, and the other gang members want
to blame him for the tragedy. The cliff where the “chicken-run” takes place is
called “the end.” After Buzz goes over the edge, it appears as if Judy is contemplating
jumping after him. But, a look from Jim stops her, as if he must be consulted
in matters about death. At one point Jim’s reaper-like persona says, “I don’t
know what to do anymore. Except maybe die.” Plato dies because he still has the
gun which Jim allowed him to keep, after removing the bullets, which is a sort of a symbolic act of castration, leading to impotence regarding continued survival. It's as if Jim transferred his rebelliousness to Plato and that anti-social part of him died with the young man. At the end, Jim puts his red jacket on Plato
(once earlier he offered him the jacket in the police station – another omen),
and zips it up as if he is taking care of his son, but the situation makes it look as if Plato is in a body bag. It is fitting that Plato’s tragedy occurs at
the observatory, the place where the young people hear about the end of the
world. Plato earlier asks Jim if the earth will end at night. Jim says it will
end at dawn – a foreboding statement since that is when Plato’s life does end.
We have to consider that not only are Jim, Judy and
Plato justified in their aversion to adulthood, but also that their
rebelliousness is a threat to the society around them if it is so
self-involved. It is why people are programmed into social roles as they lose the
passion of youth and exchange it for the compromises inherent with aging. At the police station, when the family came to pick Jim up, Jim's mother and grandmother dress similarly, even wearing the same flowers on their coats. The depiction suggests that children will become their parents. At
the end of the film, Jim’s parents exchange understanding smiles once their
son, with his supposed future bride, who looks like Jim's mom, is returned to them. The smiles, given the tragic circumstances, appear creepy and discordant. The father puts his coat around
Jim, indicating Jim and Judy will join the ranks of the adult members of
society as future replacements as they enter a black car that suggests a hearse since youthfulness must make way for the restrictions of maturity. The last image is that
of the director, Nicholas Ray, as the curator of the observatory (a fitting role for a director), appearing as an indifferent spectator to what has happened, walking along, observing the landscaping. The shot mirrors what Jim's mother said about how the experiences of young people are "episodes of little consequence." What has happened here is already being forgotten as the cycle goes on.
Next week’s movie is Long
Day’s Journey into Night.
