It all began in 1955, when the enfamous film Rebels Without a Cause came to the scene grabbing attention from those of all ages. The film was made to present the shockingly critical teenage tragedy to the public, relating to the abscence of fathers in teens lives. Screenwriters Stewart Stern, Irving Shulman, along with director Nicholas Ray, create realisitc characters who are living their lives through the father, or man of the house being absent. Every character in this film is presented with a seriously realistic issue concerning absecence of parents or attention, causing life-long obstacles for the teens to attempt to overcome.
To start the film off Jim Stark, played by the extremely famous James Dean, is drunk in the middle of the street and is taking by police to the juvinele facility, where Jim realeases his depression and frustration of the lose of a father figure in his life. As a result of his mother in control, Jim encounters several troubling obstacles, and once trouble has arrived the Stark's are rooted up from their home and moved to a new place to start over. Throughout the movie Jim struggles to recieve the structured discipline he needs from his father, causing bad incidents to happen, thus his rebellion. In his new town, Jim runs into several bad infulences, but he finds one girl, Judy (Natalie Wood), who interests him. In this timeless encounter the two find themselves falling for each other, but keeping it secret was the key to save Judy's reputation. Judy was the popular girl in high-school, she had the best boyfriend, a tough guy named Buzz (Corey Allen), perfect friends, and all the things that come with being the most popular girl in school, and being that person she couldn't dare fall for some strange new kid. Just like Jim and every character in this film, Judy has issues with her father. In the film, Judy kisses her father on the cheeck and is scolded badly and being told that she's too old to be acting that way, demanding the attention from her father. Through Jim's crush for Judy, Buzz notices and presents some rough obstacles for Jim and ends up taking the fall for his actions.
On the first day at a new school, Plato (John Crawford) shows up giving Jim a friend, and a strange one at that. Plato like the other characters has a fatherly type issue, his father abandoned him, and now he needs that fatherly figure. Currently Plato is taken in by a black maid, who loves Plato and understands his situation.
As the film rolls on, problems arose between Jim and Buzz, and Buzz slashes Jim's car tires, and a knife fight begins outside the planetarium. From the knife fight a game of Chicken is announced to be happening between Jim and Buzz to see who the real "tough guy" is. Chicken is an immature game where stolen cars are driven off a cliff and the first person to bail out of the car is considered the "chicken". From this game, Buzz is blindsided by a trouble opening his door and drives himself off the cliff and dies. Reacting to his death, his girlfriend, Judy, takes herself and starts to turn her attention to Jim, like she's wanted to all along. Judy's attention to Jim, causes on thing to lead to another and thus they fall in love and all the tension between them has melted away. Then, Jim attempts to talk to his father, but his father shows him no support so Jim does the noble thing and goes to the police, where he is met up with Buzz's gang who chase him to prevent him from informing the police. Fearing Jim's saftey, Judy and Plato run to the abandoned mansion where it's safe and they can have fun. Once they arrive Plato portrays himself to be a realtor and is selling the house to a newly married couple, Jim and Judy. Then suddenly, Buzz's gang arrives and tries to get them, during this time, Plato reacts and kills a member of the gang out of fear. Plato following murdering someone hides from the police, Jim and Judy try to calm him and convince him the police are only here to help, but Plato panics and reacts badly to the bright light shining on him and the police then shoot him.
This film is unrealisitc in our society today, this movie is very interesting and influences people my age during the 1950s to recognize their authority. This movies represents a lesson to all that authority is needed from both parents to have a sound home. This movie probably did cause kids of that time to rebel, just as the characters did in the movie. Overall this film is very moving and causes lots of thought on how time and parenting has changed from then to today. The actors in this film did a fantastic job, playing the rolls of angry teenagers longing for fatherly figures in their lives, and they also did an excellent job of playing rebellious teens through vigourous action through the film. One actor I believe that could have improved is Judy(Natalie Wood) her character seemed to be very straight forward, but she doesn't seem to show sadness in her character very well, giving that scene an unrealistic feel. Overall I would give this film a thumbs up due to its live long lessons presented, and the actors fantastic acting skills through hard scenes as well as the more soft and serene love scenes. This film deserves to serve as an highly ranked film throughout my lifetime for its great setting, acting, and realistic aspects to the teenagers of that time,but this film does serve to be unrealsitic to those of the year 2012.
