Review of East of Eden (1955) by Nick M — 20 Oct 2012

There is something electrical about James Dean, about the way he looks so incomprehensible, so weird, so "forgotten by himself", as a fragile beauty, and, at the same time, how he develops a great energy (even close to violence) in certain moments as if a thunder had invaded his skinny body.

This continuous aspect of "rebel without a cause" that he employed in the other movies he played in is ideal for this epic familiar story, with Bible reminiscences, in which the confrontation between a strict catholic father and this son who is not understood comes to dramatic consequences as the events take life by themselves.

This double-personality of the character by John Steinbeck that Dean plays, between the guy that tries to make things good but sees how everything goes wrong because of opposing characters, creates the voltage around the story is going to develop.

Characters are not lineal, but well profiled, with great strength (even the supporting roles), in a well-told story which general issue is "nobody is guilty, but, anyway, bad things are gonna happen".

Coming from Steinbeck, we could not expect anything dull, and, of course, this wasn't.