The Rebel Without a Cause
There have already been some
terrific thoughts written about this film in its dedicated thread but my relationship with this one runs deep- too deep to really convey the power it holds for me, but also deep enough not to try. It used to be my all-time favorite movie in my late teens and early 20s, and while it no longer holds that slot, the impact has dynamically shifted from identifying my youthful frustrations to nostalgically comprehending adult life as a product of this period of heightened development. This film is probably the best ever made at addressing the contradiction of feeling trapped and finding release throughout one’s life- primarily focusing on adolescence, but also making sharp observations on adulthood.
I could fire off the same old thoughts, about how a nuclear family system is portrayed and threatened, how identities are beginning to form and grow outside of the comfort zones we have tools for, and this is all true. But this film portrays such experiences as 100% emotion. There is a philosophical component and sociological examination to extract them, but the emotions are, appropriately, what drive the psychologies- influenced cyclically by the social context. Sadness can manifest as hopelessness or shame, anger can transform into brooding resentment or aggression, but the internalized tension disrupts the self and the system, and must explode eventually, spilling into reality. These adolescents are in that familiar stage where they feel like emerging adults, and as domino says,
deserve to be treated as such. Their wants and needs don't comply with social norms, and this mismatched chaos causes a suffocating imprisonment. We have a front row seat to coexist with a group of isolated people who want what the tools available to them cannot grant (much like
my thoughts on Bigger Than Life.. only on steroids).
Dean’s confrontation with his father, in particular, is devastating because there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ - only two sets of people doing the best they can with the communication skills they have, talking past one another. One of the greatest choices in a film full of them is in allowing Dean to be unclear about what he is looking for in his father’s response. He wants ‘more’ and ‘different’ but nobody can articulate what that is- it’s a confusion that cannot be cured with a magic word or caring gesture. Dean and his father can privately laugh over his spill, but then it ends. Dean wants his mother to see his father's mistake- for mistakes to be seen, acknowledged, accepted; to emerge from this facade of repressed existence. Jim's father may be right that when he grows up he'll look back on this and give it less weight, but what he cannot comprehend is that in this moment Jim needs validation and the future does not matter. He's not laughing
now, and the present is what shapes the future.
Dean's performance in trying to make sense of what he needs is revolutionary. He wants to be defended by his father, punished by the system, held to a higher standard by himself (when his father says, "You can't be idealistic all the time," Dean fires back, "Except to yourself"), cradled by an ideology ("It was a matter of honor"). He wants to be seen as a special, individualized person- yet also be a part of the system, and held accountable by the same rules as everyone without his parents bailing him out. What he really wants is to be comfortable- or rather-
safe, but the answers he's asking for are conflicting, and his father is rightfully confused- because so is Dean. What his father needs to do is listen without trying to 'fix' the situation, but even in today's day and age, we aren't so good at that. That's never been our default response, and when you love someone- you want to alleviate that pain through definitive action. Nobody has ill-intentions, and nobody is helping either.
These are deep-rooted problems of complacency creating normative patterns of negation, suppressing expectations in interpersonal dynamics. So what do you do? Act out, drive fast, engage in knife fights, assert your agency where you can- outside of the home. These kids are clawing at freedom when they don’t know what ‘free’ looks like, and when they really just want to be acknowledged, listened to, and respected within their homes. The added layer is that they don’t understand what is happening to them developmentally, that their ennui is appropriate, but their parents’ refusal to engage cuts the umbilical cord of emotional support.
Wood's relationship with her father is crucial- she wants to be treated like his little girl and an adult, but instead she resembles an in-between awkward stage of sexual development that neither she or her father can comprehend or navigate. Her sorrow is one that I recall too well in a different memory- I don't remember how old I was, but I went "Trick-or-Treating" for Halloween and came home in tears, because out of left field I simply stopped. having. fun. It was an indescribable existential crisis where I longed to be a child and an adult simultaneously but felt unprepared for either, and thus had no strategies to cope with an identity I didn't understand. To this day it is one of the most profound recollections of emotional instability I can recall, because it was not triggered by anything expected- it just happened. This entire film
is that experience. Dean's sole worry when he is arrested is to keep the monkey he found: a tangible relic to cling to, like a child's stuffed animal who can provide unconditional love and a fantastical sense of safety, when the lights go out and parents need to sleep.
The core group is resilient though; they attach, establish a dynamic, attract and become attracted to one another, and develop a camaraderie with a code of unqualified support because they understand one another even if they cannot express what they 'understand.' The 'belongingness' that Dean, Wood, and Mineo crave, they finds here- momentarily. The sensitivity of their identities doesn’t extinguish with this compassionate aid though, as Mineo still harbors an insecurity that pushes him over the edge as soon as he senses his expectations threatened for the nth time. The conditioned hopelessness at finding contentment or validation is piercingly authentic, and I fall into the camp of seeing this film as grey shades- not an assignment of blame but a thesis that shatters accountability in favor of responsibility.
The ideological system of accountability is disrupted by the introduction of emotion coloring novel identities that don't fit into cookie-cutter affectless roles. The parents are no longer simply accountable for shaping a successful child, and the child is no longer accountable for falling into their predetermined normative path as copies of generations before them. Instead,
responsibility must be formed: a shared type of ownership bred from mutual self-awareness and the willingness to listen and adapt empathically. When Dean tells the police chief that he needs to be "locked up" because he's going to hit somebody, he's asking for help, but only suggesting the narrow-minded solution he knows- to go away and be ostracized from society. The police chief calmly offers a new, creative solution for Dean to hit the desk, providing an intervention outside of the expected channels. It works, and right away we see that open-mindedness is not only possible but produces positive results, when adults and children collaborate earnestly, even in an environment populated with rigid, conformist anti-communication. I believe Mineo's lack of a role model, or consistent human vessel for relief, shatters this chance for him- and with a different card deck, it could have been Dean or Wood who met their demise in some fashion.
The social development that occurs in 24-hours carries its own realism too. It doesn't take much to trigger opportunities for maturity in these dense years of life, people constantly bumping into one another, alert to every little detail, deciphering egos and staying busy any way they can. From joking about which direction the school is in ("That way!" pointing at the sky) to a deadly chicken run, no truer line is ever spoken in the film than Buzz's response to "Why are we doing this?": "Well you gotta do
something, now don't you?" Ray doesn't chastise these characters for risking lives over a logically-meaningless activity, because emotionally it could not have more meaning. While an adult from the film would scratch their head and point to illogical action, Ray shifts his perspective to the children and thus validates them when nobody else will. These are methods that these kids can use to let loose of their ubiquitous constraints, whether asserting their personalities in teasing, violence, driving fast, or other risky behaviors. If they all had mansions to play 'house' in, maybe they'd be escaping there instead. These are the outlets where they can find their control. At an age where you cannot see more than a day ahead, there is nothing more emotionally meaningful than that.
At the end, when the acts of violence become public, the parents and kids all meet, and everything is out in the open. Only when Jim's father steps into this space outside the home, without trying to silence the impact with bribes of cigars, allowing the situation to exist divorced from a tangible pre-packaged answer, does Jim move toward him comfortable to merge his individualist identity with a conformist action: introducing hist parents to his girlfriend. I don't mean to imply that Dean and Wood are "conforming" and certainly not losing any part of themselves, but their union and this process of engagement is fitting with 'old-fashioned' ways in being inclusive of the family system. Ray believes that a union is possible, that we can expand the possibilities of our institutions to exist independently yet within society. We just need affirmations and harmonious compromise to get there.
As Dean and Wood move toward his parents, they shed snakeskin of malaise, which is not to say that it's behind them. These are the formative years where growing adults shed their skin daily, even by the hour or minute. The police chief or the parents cannot always be there to hold their hands, nor should they be. They step closer to accepting a complicated world whose meaning cannot squarely exist in the confines of two-dimensional 50s constructs. I see the ending as optimistic for a few reasons, the first being that Dean and Wood now have some experience gaining confidence in simply being
willing to expressing themselves to their parents and, instead of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole and force their perception, turning to one another for consolation when their parents inevitably fail them -or to reframe- cannot give them what they need. This is directly-reflected progress from the opening scene, where each character ventured out on their own into the dark of night in crises. The ability to practice acceptance and seek solace in other human beings, rather than empty space in solitude, is encouraging.
The other reason for an optimistic reading is that, despite the devastating losses that have transpired, we know that there will be more. Maybe not a series of human deaths, but adolescence and adulthood is full of losses of every kind. Certainly not in every circumstance, but in many, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and by that I mean that there is an opportunity for awareness and growth in many hardships (of course, not declaring them to be net-positive experiences). So when Jim's dad says, "You did everything a man could," and then reaches out his unconditional support in vague language omitting specific superficial wisdom, he begins his part of shared responsibility, even if that road will be imperfect. This crisis has caused a rupture to the system to bring them closer, even if 'closer' is actually ironically translated as gaining distance for Jim. Jim's introduction of Wood may involve his family in his life, but his behavior is aloof enough where he is now clearly more comfortable being independent. They are both
ready to part from the expected outlet of family for the full nourishment of their hunger for love and wisdom.
As an adult I now see the film through different eyes- for as they prepare to search for that sustenance elsewhere, I know that this will not be a static process. They will waver along the way, but that first step beyond the fits of confusion into a state of even half-trusting themselves is a beautiful, inspired act to witness. More pain is in their future, but the seeds of self-actualization have only sprouted, and there is nothing more sublime than an evolving identity, existing as a part of one's milieu and autonomously outside of it, special but not alone.
