I respect your opinion but I want to reiterate that the kind of verbal abuse the Father deals with in that film would screw some kids up even if the roles were reversed and the mother was being berated. Also, this was the fifties when goils was goils and men was men :) Today, thankfully, a man in an apron is not nearly as symbolic of anything except that he is cooking.
Rebel certainly isn’t meant to be read as straight sociology (something Ray had taken a stab at earlier in his career with Knock on Any Door)
If Rebel seems slightly inarticulate or confused, it’s because the really groundbreaking subject of the film was teenage sexuality, which Ray couldn’t depict in any kind of definite, defined way. He had to skirt around the very issue he was dealing with. But when Dean and Wood are instantly drawn to each other, and they sort of walk along together in this way that was very new to cinema, and when it becomes clear that Mineo’s suicidal impulses are tied in with his homosexuality, then you see glimpses of the very brave and groundbreaking film that this was. Also, I’ve always liked the definitely unsubtle but germane scene in the planetarium which drives home the whole post-atomic age anxieties of the universe being able to be destroyed in a flash, etc. I have to disagree with you, Matt, I think — Rebel is pure sociology, disguised as romance and drama, but Ray was forced to gerry the statistical conclusions somewhat.
Justin,
Sure, I didn’t mean to imply that it was totally non-sociological—as you point out there is clearly a concern with human social structure and activity, primarily teenage sexuality, but also, I think, middle class adult relationships as seen in the Starks’ marriage—but the “message” is filtered and stylized, unlike Ray’s earlier, far less successful Knock on Any Door, a film with a very clear sociological point, that the poverty and marginalization of the slums of the time led to criminal behavior. Here, Ray didn’t have to “gerry the statistical conclusions” very much at all because this was an issue that a large segment of the public was more or less ready to confront by the the late ’40s. By the time the ’50s rolled around, Ray was taking on more complex, more controversial subjects, so he had to finesse his handling of them quite a bit more . . . something he proved to be quite adept at.
J. Hoberman on In a Lonely Place
I have a hard time seeing Rebel as a “brave and groundbreaking film.” There may indeed be some interesting elements concerning sexuality, but the primary focus of the film is on the importance of strong and authoritative fathers (hardly a ‘groundbreaking’ notion in 1950s America).
Ray himself said that the issue is that Jim’s father “fails to provide the adequate father image, either in strength or authority.” This is highlighted by one of Jim’s lovely speeches about his father: “if he had guts to knock Mom cold once, then maybe she’d be happy and then she’d stop pickin’ on him . . . I’ll tell you one thing, I don’t ever want to be like him.”
As I say, the movie hasn’t aged well. It’s impossible to take this concern with strong fathers seriously and the explanations of the various characters’ behaviours just comes across as silly.
I think Ray himself might have been mistaken about the importance of Jim Backus in Rebel — or he may have been spinning the film a little. There is the show-offy acting scene where Dean goes off on his father, but that has more to do with what’s already raging in the Dean character. He loves Natalie Wood and he also loves Sal Mineo — he’s a bisexual character, like many people are today, and of course he’s a bit tense and uptight about it because it’s not an easy identity, so when he sees his father “in a dress” he attacks him as if attacking the part of himself that’s, you know, troubling him.
That’s why you really have to read very broadly between the lines with Rebel — like those Astaire-Rogers movies where the dance sequences represent sexual encounters.
Given all the evidence in the film, and given Ray’s own statements, the simplest, most plausible view is that the primary theme of the movie is the importance of strong, authoritative fathers. If someone wants to deny that the onus is on them to give us good reasons not to take Ray at his word and not to interpret the incidents in the film in the most natural way.
a directors statement is never final authority on the meaning of a film. more often than not, it may lead one astray. the films meaning is what you make of it, what you bring to it, how you engage with it.
“dont trust the teller, trust the tale.”
I didn’t say Ray was the “final authority on the meaning of the film”; I’ve only been assuming that his statement is evidence regarding what the primary theme of the movie is.
ok. just trying to say that its flawed evidence, which can lead to false conclusions.
i cant remember which artist it was that said “one always does the opposite of what one intends.”
Sorry, but what do you mean when you say that it’s “flawed evidence”? The fact that some piece of evidence could lead to a false conclusion doesn’t mean that there’s something wrong with the evidence or that it shouldn’t carry weight (after all, that’s true of all evidence).
i’m no lawyer. but as a researcher/critic, if i know before hand that a piece of evidence i’m studying could lead me to a false conclusion, i dont give it much weight. it can hold a place in an analysis, but not a significant one, and not a determining one. thats all i meant. i’m not saying i ignore that evidence, but i deal with it on its own terms and expose it for what it is if i can.
the amount of weight it should carry is negligible. if youre writing a critical work on the films of ray, and you want to cite his quote as evidence of a thesis youre working on regarding his thematic structure, its great. if you feel the simplest and most plausible way to discover the primary theme of his film is his statement of it, before anything else,i feel thats flawed. but then we’re not talking critical research. we’re talking about artistic sensations. the onus is not on us to fall in line with whatever ray says about his work. the burden of proof is not on us. we’re the viewers. we construct meaning as we absorb it. we have diplomatic immunity.
I just don’t think Ray could talk about what the film was really about, so he concentrated on the nuclear family message. But it’s all right there on the screen, and it really is very subversive and groundbreaking.
In Freudianism, of course, the “strong father” idea is quite connected to sexuality via the Oedipal complex, the resolution of which is identification with the “adequate father image” . . . so I don’t think those two perspectives are as far off as they might seem, it’s just that, as Justin said, a lot of the sexual subtext is smuggled into the film rather than confronted directly.
“if you feel the simplest and most plausible way to discover the primary theme of his film is his statement of it, before anything else,i feel thats flawed”
Well, I don’t know, that seems like an odd thing to say. I would have thought one of the easiest ways to figure out what a particular book or movie was about would be to ask the author or director. To be clear, I’m not suggesting that we should accept what Ray says regardless of what we find in the film; in this case, what Ray says about the film is consistent with the incidents and dialogue I’ve pointed to above. Taken together, this evidence constitutes a strong case for the conclusion that the primary concern (or one of the primary concerns) of Rebel is the importance of strong, authoritative fathers. Justin suggests instead that the film is concerned with the psychological toil of being a secret bisexual; I’m claiming that that’s a rather implausible conclusion given the evidence.
But it’s really not — have you noticed the loving, longing looks Mineo gives to Dean, and how Dean realizes he’s the only one who can try to save Mineo. A moden film by Gus Vant Sant would simply show all the actual sex that Ray in its search for purity and innocence, and his battles with censorship, couldn’t. But for anyone with eyes to see, it’s there — and you always have to make allowances for films of the 40s and 50s, Ray’s less so, because he was quite bold.
I also disagree with the poster who says They Live by Night is unerotic enough — again, Ray was dealing with censorhsip, but the sensuality of the making out by the fire, the aggression with which Keechie tries to save Bowie from slippin back into crime, the “Your Red Wagon” song, the sensual sharing of the sweet potato pie — not to mention Bowie’s frequent shirtlessness — it’s about as erotically charged as an 1949 film can get.
But it isn’t just that Ray managed to touch us in taboo places— he ad simultaneously innocent lyrical romanticism along with the hard, subversive edge.
he’s best in LIGHTNING OVER WATER
Typical Godard hyperbole for the sake of provocation it would seem but yes, Nicholas Ray was a damn good director. My favourite of his films is THE SAVAGE INNOCENTS.
“But it’s really not — have you noticed the loving, longing looks Mineo gives to Dean, and how Dean realizes he’s the only one who can try to save Mineo.”
I’m not sure how this relates to the point at issue: i.e. whether or not Dean’s character is misbehaving because he doesn’t have a strong, authoritative father (as Ray himself says), or because he’s a secret bisexual.
Yes, well, and it isn’t that the father is not strong and authoritative, it’s that the father was probably always gay or bi as well, but had to hide it even more more than his son does — and yet within the confines of the cozy sanctity of the marriage household, he gets to pretend his wife is the big strong man he really wanted to marry, and he puts on the frilly apron and takes orders, etc. So Dean is already ahead of the game — he’s like the first generation of bisexuals/homosexuals who realized they didn’t have to “act nelly” and dress us like Marilyn, but could simply be masculine men. Again, though, in this, he’s like a man on the moon.
Mathias, I don’t think you’ll ever “be sure” of what I’m saying, but if you could see Rebel the way I do, you’d definitely appreciate it more as the radical, subversive, groundbreaking film it is. It just has to be “completed,” in a sense, by the viewer.
Bumping up over all the threads that got trolled last night.
Okay Justin, but I reserve the right to think that you’re seeing things that aren’t there since you haven’t provided any reasons for anyone to think that the film actually depicts what you say it does.
Just saw “In a Lonely Place” the other night for the first time. I now understand all the fuss made about Nicholas Ray – he was truly a brilliant and original talent. Film Forum here in NYC is running a retrospective of his films and I will be there for as many of them as I can! My first impression of his unique sensibility is that he makes melodrama seem like the purest form of cinema. By that, I mean that melodrama, as a self-indulgent and narcissistic class of drama, is uniquely suited to the implicit eroticism of cinema and the passive nature of experiencing a movie as spectator.
In a Lonely Place is one of Ray’s best and one of the best of all the classic noirs. I saw it also on a newer dvd last week and noticed a lot of interesting locations used by Ray’s architect’s eye.
I saw the 1957 Bitter Victory last weekend and it boldly confronted unpopular anti-war issues.
Happy birthday, Nick Ray!
Two quick inside jokes in REBEL: (1) at the very end of the film, the man walking toward the planetarium as the sun comes out is none other than Nicholas Ray, and (2) the strong-father-figure cop who befriends Jim Stark is named Ray.
I hesitate a bit to call him the Greatest Filmmaker of All Time, but I have no qualms to say that Nicholas Ray is my favorite director of all time. I’d seen REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE at 14 but it was discovering IN A LONELY PLACE when I was 17 that shook me, moved me and made me want to seek out everything this man ever touched. To this day Ray’s 1950 film noir is my favorite movie, it works equally well as a film noir, a romance and a drama.
Nicholas Ray is,along with John Cassavetes, my favorite American filmmaker.
Mathias Popkin
Well, Mike Spence I appreciate that you see the movie differently than I do. But I didn’t find the film ridiculous because I expected realism and I have no problem with a director who works “in broad strokes to make a strong point.” In this case, the point being made with the broad strokes is a ridiculous one. For instance, my problem with having the father wearing an apron isn’t the rather broad symbolism, but with the point being made: i.e. when a man takes on traditionally female roles his kids will get all mixed up and delinquency will ensue.
But, as I say, I’m not claiming Ray is a bad director by any means. I think Johnny Guitar and In a Lonely Place are good movies. I just think Rebel Without a Cause is a bad movie. All the best directors have sometimes made bad movies.