Rebel's Cause Is Poetic

Movie Review #6: Rebel Without A Cause, 1955

Misunderstood. Unchecked emotion. Revolutionary.

Recently, I attended Indiana university's production of the opera La Boheme. Its story of the poet, a Bohemian...a gypsy artist acting against conventional norms, reminded me of this movie. In a sense, James Dean as the lead portrays the wild, rebellious teenager trying to make his way, creating his own world, while trying to escape the constraints of the world of his parents.

The poetry is in the emotions that the entire cast of characters act out...everything from anger, rage, despair, longing and melancholy to passion, happiness and excitement, and then finally remorse and grief at the death of two characters. The movie is physical and raw, and you can feel something stir inside you...a remembrance of a time, a familiarity, a connection. This is what a good poem does to me.