Smashing icons: It's time to go after James Dean
Published May 09, 2005
It's always seemed unfair to me that people in the public eye who've built long careers have had to compete with their colleagues who failed to live out their four score and ten. Would Marilyn Monroe have retained her luster had she lived to grow old and fat? (Or should I say fatter?) Impossible.
Fifty years after James Dean's death, David Gritten reviews the actor's work and concludes that he hasn't worn well.
The more you see of Dean's work, the more it seems like Brando Lite. Brando broke new ground and was more versatile and technically adept. But Dean's trump cards - his youth and beauty - dazzled adolescent audiences and briefly eclipsed all other actors at the time.
As Gritten points out, when Dean hit the scene--in the mid-1950s--during a sort of golden age for male actors, among them Robert Mitchum, Montgomery Clift and Brando. Gritten compares Dean, unfavorably, with Paul Newman.
Paul Newman was nearly 30 before he achieved fame (in Somebody Up There Likes Me, set to be Dean's next role had he lived). Since then he has made fine movies, mediocre ones, and some downright bad ones. No shame in that; it's how you rise above your material.Dean, sadly, never had the chance to do this. In his three major films, he was guided by first-rate directors: Elia Kazan, George Stevens, and, in Rebel, by the great Nicolas Ray. Could he have withstood the inevitable turkeys to deliver great later-life performances, as Newman did in The Hustler, Cool Hand Luke and The Verdict, and Brando did in Last Tango in Paris and The Godfather? One doubts it; his talent seems too flimsy.
David Thomson, so ga-ga about Dean's "potency", finds Newman self-regarding and, as a young actor, mannered. My feelings are precisely the opposite. And while Dean is lauded for burning out and dying, Newman stayed alive, applied himself, and ended up as a key film actor of his generation. A genuinely good career move.
Brando lived to become a parody of himself. But it always seemed to me unfair that Dean's untimely demise allowed him to overshadow Montgomery Clift, another actor of his era who died before his time.
Maybe it's because I wasn't around when Dean's breakthrough film, Rebel Without a Cause, became "a generation's war cry," as Gritten put it. But by the time I saw the movie, I'd been filled up to bursting with Dean's iconic image and, frankly, came away from it underwhelmed.
By contrast, I was gobsmacked, upon seeing my first Montgomery Clift film, From Here to Eternity. And I remained impressed by The Search and The Young Lions. Besides being better looking than Dean (just my humble opinion), Clift had a romantic backstory: a life debeviled by drink and a disfiguring car accident that destroyed his beauty. He also left behind a body of work.
Yet everybody talks about James Dean. Seems to death was a good career move.
- Smashing icons: It's time to go after James Dean
- Published: May 09, 2005
- Type: Opinion
- Section: Video
- Filed Under: Video: Classics, Video: Performing Arts
- Writer: Rachel
- Rachel's BC Writer page
- Rachel's personal site
- Spread the Word
- Like this article?
- Email this
Save to del.icio.us
Comments on this articleComments
very timely Rachel, thanks and welcome!
Nicolette, I think reaching icon status has to do with the shape of the puzzle piece fitting a cultural need exactly - as much chance as anything
I think it's Rebel Without A Cause that clinched it for Dean. As Ditten says it became "a nation's war cry." No MM wasn't fat. But take a look at her in Some Like it Hot. She wouldn't get a starring role in a movie today looking like that. But that's a post for another day.
hard to say what would have happened to MM: she might have aged well, but it's unlikely
I don't think she would have retained her same place in the firmament had she lived (and I seriously doubt that she would have aged well). No, icons must be forever young--or youngish. Once middle-aged spread sets in it's all over. It's all about lost potential, particularly in Dean's case since he only made three movies of note.
Some Like It Hot is one of my all time favorites. For me, the entire film is a lead in to the "by the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea" shot of MM coming out of the water in a one piece.... Profile, amazing! Then later when she signs "I Wanna Be Loved By You" in a gown that looks transparent in the nightclub lighting...
Fat? NOT!
I knew that fat line would get me into trouble. She wasn't fat, but these days--when Kate Winslet was apparently tormented by a director who called her Kate Weighs-Alot on set and couldn't get parts after starring in the highest grossing movie of all time--Monroe probably would end up playing Charlize Theron's fat best friend. Standards (in Hollywood anyway) have changed.
Standards in Hollywood have changed because, while we pay lip service to not agreeing with Hollywood, we then call normal sized women fat.
Crap, look at Renee Zellweger -- the press obsessed when she gained weight for the BG movies, and then they obsessed over if she would lose the weight. THEN they got extra mileage out of saying she lost too much and went the other way. And apparently America shared the obsession.
Robert Deniro gained a whole lot of weight for Raging Bull, and people thought he was an actor who was committed to his craft. People treated RZ like she as insane to risk her career by being a normal weight.
So who do you all think would be an icon if they died today? Anyone?
It is always hard to suppose what the young dead icons would have become, but it is a fun mental exercise. I think MM was actually smart enough to parlay her looks and mystique into some solid Hollywood power after her looks faded. AS for Dean, he might have easily fallen into the career path of someone like Jack Nicholson or Dennis Hopper.
I can't think of any actor who has the kind of mystique that would sustain their legend if they were to die tomorrow, so many more films are made today that the public has little time to notice before another Hollywood blockbuster comes out.
Some of the best leads are into their 40's, guys like Don Cheadle who turned in great performances throughout his career, only now getting leading roles.
Females have a bit harder time, because there are so few strong female characters in movies, even now. Again, the only ones that immediately springs to mind are in their 40's (IIRC) Nicole Kidman and CCH Pounder.
Please don't flame me for this, but I really think that Brad Pitt has turned in some of the most amazing performances by a male lead in the last ten years.Seven, Fight Club, Twelve Monkeys...
But that's not what you asked Nicolette. Icon? If they died today? So the candidate has to be young with only a few movies to their credit?
Give me your pick!
Pitt is in his 40's too, but I will grant you that he turns out some perfromances that show he has the talent to back up his looks.
I think Pitt is at a different place now ... handsome enough and talented enough to be mourned, but established enough that we cannot say with any certainty that his best work was ahead of him. (Basically -- sad, but he had his once around.)
I think if he'd died slightly after Thelma and Louise he'd be an icon.
It's hard to say who would qualify. There is such a hype machine today that celebs get overexposed before you can even name one film that they've been in. People are telling you that they are something special before you have a chance to judge it for yourself. (And usually the hype is wrong.)
I don't think Brad Pitt would become an icon, for the same reasons you mention, Nicolette. How about Scarlett Johanssen? She's young enough.
All good comments. I don't think there is really star of today would be remembered 50 years from now. They are all pretty much alike.
Donna A.
You all had better get a grip on yourself. Well, there, then now. Read the lies
Marilyn just turned 80, guess she didn't want to look like Mae West!
You are a terrible writer. Morbid even. Don't quit your day job.
Add your comment, speak your mind
(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/29218)
Very interesting take -- many good points made. (But Marilyn Monroe was not fat!)
I do think Dean's fame has much to do with dying young, but doesn't there have to be more? River Phoenix was a very talented actor who died young, and yet he shows none of the signs of reaching Dean-ian stature. What is the key difference?