MovieChat Forums > Rebel Without a Cause (1955) Discussion > Please Explain... (SPOILERS)

Please Explain... (SPOILERS)

posted 14 years ago by DCMovieyea
8 replies | jump to latest

I enjoyed this movie. The acting, direction and even dialogue are all top notch. However, I could not suspend my disbelief and wholly appreciate this film for several reasons:

1. What is James Deans' character's "problem"? Supposedly the family keeps moving because "this" keeps happening to him at ever school. So "this" -- getting into knife fights with teenage gangs??? --is what continually happens, on his first day when he does nothing to provoke people??? How is that a pattern? How does that keep happening to someone on the first day of school everywhere you go?

2. Buzz's Death -- A person died. A person that most people at the cliff knew and were friends with. Even his best friends, the fellow gang members, are just like "Oh Buzz died. Well let's not cry or mourn his death, even though we're teenagers and can't control our emotions. Lets just keep on doin' what were already doin'!" No one reacted like anyone in real life would. No one cried, he's barely reference outside of James Deans' character's fight with his parents. That is just not how that situation would've gone done.

3. This is a continuation of the point above, but this is especially true to her character --- HER BOYFRIEND JUST DIED. She is a sixteen year old girl who's boyfriend died and we see her just chilling and laughing and having fun with this other dude just HOURS later.

You shouldn't expect your viewer to suspend their disbelief of doing so makes the story and actions illogical.

BUT if you have any explanation for why the characters act this way, feel free to post a reply.

[–] novastar_6 14 years ago

1. His problem is he doesn't fit in, and he's often being hassled, he doesn't like being called chicken because it reminds him of his apron-wearing walking-on-eggshells-around-his-wife father who can't take a stand for anything and teach him what it means to be a real man, he can't give his son any answers to the questions he needs answered.

2. And what, you were present at a lot of chicken runs gone bad? In the 1950s guys were trained from birth not to cry, that was for sissies, that was for girls, their response was that they blamed Jim for Buzz's death and wanted revenge. Anger and violence, that's the only 'right' emotion boys were supposed to show.

3. Maybe because she didn't really love him, she was just used to him, she told Jim later that she had been with a lot of guys that she thought she had loved, or was looking for love from, but she never did. If there were no real feelings towards him, she can't really be expected to mourn, though she did seem to be feeling something right after the crash when she was on the edge of the bluff and Jim had to bring her back from the edge.

[–] thefuture11 14 years ago

i got one answer for "what's this teenage guy's problem?": it's called teen angst. when u're a teen, u dont even need a real reason to have a problem, but perhaps the fact that he was lacking a strong male role-model might have been part of the cause (he thought his father was a wimp and his mother overcontrolling).

"No sense makes sense." - Charlie Manson

[–] novastar_6 14 years ago

And I would like to expand on the OP's complaints of everybody wasn't crying over Buzz's death. You see this in a lot of movies, especially old movies, somebody dies and there's very little if any grieving period, now this one has a disadvantage in that it's one ongoing story supposed to be in a 24 hour span, whereas other movies cover the period of days in their storyline...but as a kid I thought it was strange in The Bat, how all these people connected to Cornelia Van Gorder dies, and a few days later she seems to have moved on with her life and is carrying on like nothing's wrong. I never got that as a child, and like in one of the mummy movies from the 40s, all these people die horrible deaths, and the at the end these two people are rushing off happy because they're getting married. So it's not just this movie that does it.

[–] kkhsiivonen 14 years ago

Yeah angst is the perfect answer. In fact a guy like him would these day be called EMO

[–] 14 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Quanfa 13 years ago

Jim's teen angst didn't need any more explanation than the movie provided. It was normal teenage emotions run amok. Natalie Wood probably should've been a little more freaked out about Buzz's death - at least freaked out if not sad. I can believe these guys played the chicken game a lot, but I doubt guys were dying from it so often they don't care when someone died from it!

The argument against this though is it wasn't the point of the story. The point was to build a way to get the three leads in the same place to emote. But still, something could've been done and it would have made the movie better. But it's a minor flaw in an otherwise brilliant movie.

[–] sarah-103 12 years ago

It's really sublte, but right after the race, she contemplates suicide. She's standing at the edge of the cliff, and Jim shakes his head, as if to say no. I think he offers his hand, then she takes it and walks away.

"Forget reality, give me a picture"-Remington Steele

[–] leglos24 11 years ago

I never got a suicide vibe from that scene. To me she was just looking down to see the wreckage, or maybe hoping Buzz was somehow alive, and Jim was just shaking his head, as in "no, he's dead".

The Bouquet residence, lady of the house speaking!