BEFORE: I'll have to get back to Ian McShane when I see "Hellboy" and "John Wick: Chapter 3", if not before. Instead I'll follow another actor for a few films - Ben Kingsley carries over from "Sexy Beast", and he should be good for four films, then this should lead to three with Annette Bening, and then I'll have time for a couple of my World War II films before I get into documentaries for the rest of June.
THE PLOT: A photographer for LIFE Magazine is assigned to shoot pictures of James Dean.
AFTER: You're probably familiar with the most famous photograph of 1950's actor James Dean, which shows him walking through NYC's Times Square in the rain, with his overcoat on and his collar pulled up, with a cigarette in his mouth, looking all moody. This photo, of course, was taken back in 1955, which is I think the last year you COULD walk through Times Square without being accosted by people dressed as Cookie Monster or Elmo trying to charge you $10 to take their photo. I wonder if anyone now dresses up like James Dean and tries to pose walking down Broadway to re-create the famous photo?
What you may not know is that the photographer, Dennis Stock, spent several days with Dean in NYC and then Indiana, creating a 4-page spread for LIFE magazine, and this was the last pre-fame period in Dean's life, just before "East of Eden" opened in movie theaters, and just prior to the filming of "Rebel Without a Cause". After that, Dean would appear in only one more movie, "Giant", before taking the bold career move of dying in a car accident, thus cementing his status as a legend of cinema.
This film seems to take that LIFE magazine spread as a guide, setting up one famous photo after another - do we really need to know what Dean and Stock talked about before shooting that image in Times Square, like, does it matter? Not really. Then it's on to Indiana, where Stock photographed Dean working on his uncle's farm, reading with his young cousin, and talking to teens at the local school's dance. At the end of the film, the real photos from the magazine are displayed, and you realize that the whole film was sort of ticking off these events, one by one. So essentially, it's just a "making of" segment for a photo-spread from 1955. Big deal.
Like, you can make a silly film, or an outrageous film, or a confusing film, but please, don't make a boring film. The minute details about how Stock and Dean got to Indiana (they took the train) or how they set up the photo of Dean standing in front of a tractor matter very little in the long run, and I question whether they're even an appropriately interesting enough topic for a movie. Hey, remember that iconic photo of that sailor kissing a woman in Times Square at the end of World War II? Let's make a movie about those people! It'll be fascinating, right? Umm, no it won't, so please don't.
I'm not even saying that James Dean was an incredibly dynamic person in real life - he might have been, but then again, on the set of "Giant", when Dean's character was supposed to make a drunken speech at a banquet, he reportedly mumbled so badly that his lines had to be overdubbed by another actor, to salvage the scene after Dean's death. The actor playing Dean here seems to have used this as inspiration, and manages to mumble his way through his portrayal of the iconic actor, which is a choice that you may find doesn't really pay off.
It's also a fallacy to assume that everything that's well-known has a fascinating story behind it, one that's just aching to be told. Looking ahead at some of the biopics coming up on my list, there's the film about Neil Armstrong - probably some good material there worthy of a film. Then there's the one about actress Gloria Grahame. Hmm, I'm not sure yet. That film about Ruth Bader Ginsberg - OK, I'll give it a shot. The film about Thurgood Marshall? Sure, I'll watch it, but it sounds like a snore-fest. The biopic about Laurel and Hardy - I'm very interested. The new one where Elvis Presley meets Richard Nixon? I don't know...
It occurs to me that James Franco also played James Dean, in a TV movie that I have not seen. Perhaps I should have watched that along with this, for comparative purposes. Some of the same key moment in Dean's life are probably seen in both films - Nicholas Ray, Pier Angeli, Elia Kazan. Jack Warner (of Warner Brothers) was played in "Life" by Ben Kingsley, and I found his character much more fascinating than Dean's - the head of the studio who seems to have eyes and ears everywhere, and an agenda to stomp out any untoward rumors or gossip about his contract players. It was a different time, for sure, but in many ways things haven't really changed, it's just that the scandals have gotten bigger. Back in the 1950's it would have been a complete shock to find out that a Hollywood star was in a same-sex relationship, for example. These days people aren't shocked and offended unless a celebrity is accused of drugging 20 women or molesting like a dozen teens. But hey, I guess that's progress?
Also starring Robert Pattinson (last seen in "Queen of the Desert"), Dane DeHaan (last seen in "The Place Beyond the Pines"), Joel Edgerton (last seen in "Boy Erased"), Alessandra Mastronardi (last seen in "To Rome With Love"), Stella Schnabel (last seen in "At Eternity's Gate"), Michael Therriault (last seen in "Forsaken"), Kristen Hager (last seen in "Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem"), Kelly McCreary, Eva Fisher (last seen in "Inherent Vice"), Jack Fulton (last seen in "Room"), Kasey Lea, Peter Lucas, Lauren Gallagher, John Blackwood, Kristian Bruun, Caitlin Stewart, Nicholas Rice, Philip Maurice Hayes, Eve Crawford, Ron White.
RATING: 4 out of 10 contact sheets
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