Rebel Without a Cause Paper

Sean Allan

Rebel Without a Cause is a 1955 American film. It stars James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, and Jim Backus. Nicholas Ray directed the film. Rebel Without a Cause is a good film because it is a positive look at the emotional problems of teenagers. Furthermore, it is a positive movie without being too positive or sentimental.

The movie is set in Los Angeles. The movie begins with a drunk Jim Stark (James Dean) finding a toy monkey on the sidewalk. Because it is very late at night and Jim is drunk, Jim decides to lie down to sleep. He takes the toy monkey and puts the monkey to bed, too, as if the monkey were his son.

After this scene, we see Jim in a Police Station. The police let Jim keep the monkey. Jim has to wait for his parents; he is drunk and obnoxious. Meanwhile, Judy (Natalie Wood) is talking to an officer. Judy has bright lipstick and is wearing a bright red coat. The police think she might have been out soliciting men for prostitution. Judy explains that she believes her father hates her, and she says that she went outside after her father rubbed off her lipstick and called her a dirty tramp. It seems that Judy dressed as a tramp because she thinks that is what her father thinks she is, so she might as well act like one.

In the same Police Station is Plato (Sal Mineo). Plato’s caretaker, a black maid, asks him if he is cold. Jim hears this and tries to give Plato his coat. Plato refuses. We learn later that Plato’s parents are gone—his father lives in another part of the States, and his mother is simply not around. It’s Plato’s birthday. Because his parents are not around, Plato celebrates his birthday by killing puppies with a gun. Plato does not know why he does bad things and does not know how to feel better about his life.

Jim’s parents and grandmother (father’s mother) come to the station to get Jim. Jim says, “Happy Easter” to all of them. The parents are more interested in yelling at each other than in punishing or comforting Jim. Jim yells at them that they do not ever accomplish anything because their arguments never end. A sympathetic cop takes Jim away from his family. The cop forgives Jim for an attempted assault, an assault which the cop easily prevents. The cop is the best kind of “real man” in a movie that is about “becoming a man.” After the cop stops Jim from hitting him, he takes off his jacket. The audience sees his gun, and perhaps the audience thinks that Jim will soon be hurt because taking off one’s jacket is usually a sign that one is about to fight. Instead, we see the cop take off his gun and place it in the drawer. Jim likes this cop because the cop shows that he is tough, and the cop also shows that he doesn’t have to be violent or mean. The cop lets Jim beat up his desk, and he lets Jim know that most people survive families that argue all the time. Jim goes home; he takes a compact that he found in the station with him. The compact is Judy’s.

Jim is excited about the first day of school. He sees Judy and tries to talk to her, but she is rude to him. Jim goes to school; he is confused, but people seem to be friendly, except for a gang of which Judy is part. Plato sees Jim at school and seems to be excited.

The Juniors and Seniors visit the Planetarium that afternoon. The Planetarium presentation emphasizes that the Earth will one day be destroyed and that people are insignificant. This presentation reflects the feelings that many young people have, feelings that they are insignificant. The presentation also shows how adults are not very sympathetic to younger people. If children are afraid of a world that has no meaning, why should adults teach them that the world is meaningless because it will soon end?

Jim likes the presentation. Plato tries to talk to Jim. Buzz (Corey Allen), the leader of a gang and Judy’s boyfriend, makes a stupid joke about a constellation. Jim laughs at the joke, and he tries to make a similar joke about the constellation Taurus by making a “Moo” sound. The gang does not laugh at the joke; instead, they use it as an excuse to pick a fight with Jim after the presentation.

Plato stays with Jim when it looks like Jim will have to face the gang. Buzz cuts one of the tires on Jim’s car. Jim does a good job acting “like a man.” He walks to the car and tries to change the tire without doing anything to the gang. He keeps telling the gang, “I don’t want any trouble.” However, Jim is still insecure. When Buzz calls Jim “chicken,” Jim is willing to knife fight with Buzz. The knife fight is excitingly filmed, but it keeps using medium, focused shots during the fight, a style that is used in almost all of the film.

Buzz doesn’t really take the fight seriously, so Jim is able to win. He puts the knife to Buzz’ throat, then drops the knife. Buzz insists on a new competition. Jim agrees to a chickee run, and he pretends that he knows what it is when he really doesn’t. Jim is happy that Plato supported him, so he and Plato talk after the gang leaves. He asks Plato what a chickee run is. Jim shows that he is a good friend but is still insecure. He is insecure because he has to keep fighting with this gang.

At home, Jim sees his father (Jim Backus) in an apron. He wants his father to be a man, but his father doesn’t ever want to argue with anyone. The apron makes the dad look more like a woman, so visually the father “can’t” be a man. Jim is still insecure, but he knows that he shouldn’t go to the chickee run, so he tries to get his father to tell him not to go. It is not in the father’s nature to say, “No” to Jim; in fact, the father asks Jim, “Son, have I ever said, ‘No’ to you about anything?” The father thinks that that is a good thing, but Jim wants his father to tell him ‘No’; that’s what a father does.

Judy’s father says “No” too much. Judy is at the dinner table; she wants to kiss her father good evening, but her father thinks she is too old. She assures her father that it’s still okay for her to show affection to him, like a young child would. Her father slaps her when she tries to kiss him again. Because Judy’s father can’t let Judy be a girl, and because they cannot talk about it, Judy feels that she is not part of the family. Perhaps she wasn’t going to go to the chickee run, but now she leaves the dinner table and her home.

Plato goes to the chickee run to support Jim. Judy asks Plato about Jim, and Plato pretends to know Jim a lot better than he does, noting for example that very close friends can call Jim “Jamie”. Plato also says, “I wish he were my father.” Buzz and Jim pick cars for the chickee run. Buzz is very friendly, but he says to Jim, “You’ve got to do something.” They may like one another, but teenagers still feel that they have to do something exciting, and gang leaders still feel that they have to show that they are tough.

The chickee run is a race to the edge of a cliff. The first person to jump out of the car is a chicken. The movie has quick cuts during the race. We see a close-up of Buzz, then a close-up of Jim, then a middle shot of the two cars driving toward the camera. It is exciting in a different way than the knife fight is exciting. Jim waits a long time before jumping. Buzz gets his jacket caught on the door, so he fails to get out before the car goes of the cliff.

The gang leaves after Buzz’s death. Plato stays with Jim; no one took Judy when the gang left, so Jim reaches out to her.

Jim drops Judy off. He gives her back a compact and says, “Want to see a monkey?” This refers back to the toy that Jim took care of. He is telling Judy that he cares about her. Plato is excited and wants to hang out with Jim all night. Jim tells him to go home and that they’ll see each other tomorrow. Plato leaves reluctantly.

Jim’s parents confront him. Jim tells them what he did. He wants them to tell him to go to the police, but they won’t. Jim even attacks his dad because the dad will not give him an answer. Jim leaves the house again, stopping to kick a painting of grandma as a way to show that he rejects his family.

Jim goes to the police station, but the friendly cop is not there. The cops are more interested in being friendly to an adult that they are booking for “assault with a deadly weapon”; they don’t care about Jim’s problems because he’s a kid. The gang sees Jim and thinks he is telling the police that the gang is involved.

Jim goes home and sees that Judy is waiting for him. Judy calls Jim “Jamie”. Jim is confused. Judy asks Jim how long he has known Plato. We see Jim think and wrinkle his forehead after Judy asks him the question; he seems to know that Plato lies and fantasizes a lot. “This morning,” he answers quietly.

Jim takes Judy to the abandoned house that Plato told Jim about. Plato meets them there. They pretend to be adults. They talk about how much they hate children. Plato is happy, and he starts to pretend to be Jim and Judy’s son. Plato falls to sleep; Jim and Judy dote over him like two parents looking over their sleeping child. They laugh at Plato having two different colored socks, but they don’t laugh to make fun of him. They laugh because they understand what it means to be nervous.

After Plato goes to sleep, Jim and Judy go to another room to make out. Judy tells Jim that she loves him, and she is surprised that it is “so easy” to love someone. While they talk, though, three gang members enter the house. Plato wakes up to find Jim and Judy gone and three gang members surrounding him.

Plato fights valiantly against the three gang members, and eventually he gets his gun from his jacket. He shoots one gang member. Jim opens the door to see what Plato is doing, and Plato almost shoots Jim. Plato yells to Jim, “You’re not my father!” Plato’s sense that he has been abandoned again has made him go crazy.

Plato goes from the house to the Planetarium. There are cops after Plato now. Jim tells Judy that they have to help Plato. Jim’s parents arrive at the Planetarium with the friendly cop. Jim goes into the Planetarium. Plato asks Jim if the world will end at night; Jim says, “No, at dawn.” Jim gives Plato his jacket, which Plato holds like a child. Jim takes the bullets out of Plato’s gun, but he has to give the gun back.

Jim goes outside to show the police that he has the bullets, but the police turn on bright lights again. This scares Plato. He runs out, and the police shoot him because they think that he still has bullets. Jim cries over Plato’s body. He zips up his jacket on Plato’s corpse. Jim’s father finally is the man that he needs to be. He tells Jim to stand up with him. Jim introduces his parents to Judy. The camera pans up to the Planetarium. The sun is coming up. Jim and Judy are in love, and they have learned something, yet Plato’s world has ended at dawn.

The movie does an excellent job showing how teenagers don’t understand and can’t control their feelings. After Jim drops off Judy, he tries to flirt with her. He asks Judy if she is okay. He gets out of the car and grabs the knot on Judy’s head wrap, a knot that is just below her chin. He wants to touch Judy, but he isn’t sure that he should. Judy tells Jim that she will be fine. Jim then pushes her away with his hand holding the knot. He seems slightly angry that Judy doesn’t need him. After Jim gets in the car, he calls Judy over and gives her her compact. Jim knows that giving the compact to Judy will have an effect on her. Judy looks at the compact for some time, and Jim doesn’t know what to do. He looks around, and then he looks back at Judy and quickly winks at her before driving away. Judy puts the compact up to her face and caresses it. This is a great scene because it shows that both Jim and Judy can’t control or understand their feelings. Judy isn’t sure what to do with her feelings for Jim. She tells him she is okay, but she might want him to stay but doesn’t want to say it. She holds the compact to her face as if it was Jim’s hand, but she’s too scared to tell Jim about her feelings. Jim knows that he likes Judy, but he doesn’t know what to do. He is so anxious to be with her that he almost hurts her when she says that she will be fine. He knows that giving her the compact will make her like him more, but he doesn’t know what to do after she takes it. The wink is cute, but Jim knows that winking at someone right after her boyfriend has died is probably not a good thing to do. The scene is very well made because it shows how teenagers don’t know how to show their feelings and don’t know how to control their bodies when they have strong feelings.

The movie also effectively shows what it means for a father to be a man. The movie is wrong about the differences between men and women, but at the end, when Jim’s father holds Jim and promises to stand up with Jim, the audience sees real love and emotional support. The end of the film is a moving display of fatherly love, and earlier, the film shows many examples of a father who thinks he is doing the right thing, but he isn’t. For example, Judy’s father thinks he needs to be more distant from Judy so that she can grow up more easily; he doesn’t understand that she needs him still to show that he loves her.

Finally, the film is good because the ending is not completely positive. Plato dies. Jim shows he is a man, but he fails to save Plato. Jim is probably facing legal trouble. In a bad movie, the Plato character would live, and the characters would seem to have all of their problems solved. In Rebel Without a Cause, there are still many struggles for Jim, Judy, and Jim’s father. We know that Jim and Judy’s love will help them get over their problems. A bad movie simply solves everyone’s problems, and people live “happily ever after”.

Rebel Without a Cause is a great film about teenagers. Why do people watch films about teenagers? It seems American movies are interested in ‘outsiders’. A teenager is a type of outsider. A teenager is outside of the adult world, and he is outside of the world of children. Furthermore, everyone has been a teenager, so everyone understands how a teenager is an outsider. Movies like this make an effort to help people understand people that are normally ignored or put down.