When the majority of people think back on the career of James Dean they tend to think of Rebel Without A Cause as Dean's masterpiece and for good reason. Dean's debut, East of Eden on the other hand is an extremely poor adaptation of a novel of the same name that was written by John Steinbeck. This is the film that put James Dean on the map and was the starting point of his rise as a cultural icon. While some may call this film a milestone, it comes off as a huge misstep for director Elia Kazan.
The film opens up at around ¾ of the way through the actual book and still manages to be a jumbled and uneven mess. Major characters from the book are cut out and in the process create giant plot holes. New characters are added such as Abra who changes the relationship between a lot of characters and adds different tones and themes to the film that Steinbeck originally never intended. Another problem the film suffers from is it's extremely uneven pacing, there is too much time wasted on things that never play into the actual arch of the film. Kazan seems like he tries to distract his audience rather than engage them.
Elia Kazan who has shown through his previous films that he is clearly a capable director and this is the fact that makes this film so disappointing. Kazan never seems truly grasp the underlying tones of Steinbeck's book and this translates to the screen. Instead of treating his material with care and insight he instead seems to constantly exploit Dean's "to cool for school" attitude to manipulate the audience into empathizing with a character because of his looks and not his motives. Kazan never exposes the core essence of his characters he lets characters tell you what their characters are thinking instead of letting them show what they are feeling, a major weakness from any director.
The films biggest weakness is that it never devotes enough time to character development. Characters constantly make decision's that seem out of place and unnatural. For instance when Aron becomes insane and leaves for war his fiancé Abra is totally indifferent to the entire situation. Yet her heart breaks for Cal when he is faced with the fact that he may have to live his life without the forgiveness of his father, even though he is the cause of Aron's leaving. It seems the more and more Cal destroys the lives of the people around him the more they take him in with open arms.
Aside from poor character development the film fails to give an adequate amount of back- story for certain characters. The dynamics of the relationship between Adam and his two sons is never really explored beyond face value. It is never explained how exactly Cal finds out that his mother is alive nor does the film explain the motives of the relationship between Cal and the person he starts his bean business with, who appears on screen a total of 3 times and than forgotten.
The film while generally disappointing and uninspired does have its moments from time to time. Jo Van Fleet who gives the best performance in the film won the award for best supporting actress at the 1956 Academy Awards. Van Fleet's film debut proved that she could hold her own even among larger that life actors such as James Dean. Another strong point of the film can be attributed to the film's art department who do a stellar job at recreating the Salinas Valley circa the early 1900's.
Cinematographer Ted McCord is the real heart of this film. McCord takes chances and they pay off. His use of lighting is more moody than most studio films of the 50's and he maintains a sense of movement even when the actor's blocking remains mostly static. McCord is responsible for developing characters that many of the unimpressive actor's in this film could not accomplish through acting. During one scene between Cal and his father McCord highlights their distorted relationship by using innovative camera tilts that gives the scene a real sense of drama that the acting lacked. The biggest tragedy resulting from this film is that Ted McCord didn't even get nominated for an Academy Award.
After all these years East of Eden seems aged and uninspired. James Dean proved that he was easy to watch on camera but didn't prove that he was an accomplished actor. Unfairly critically acclaimed and winner of one deserved Academy Award East of Eden really only ever accomplishes two things. It proves that people love "happy" endings even if they aren't really "happy" and that too many people are suckers for a pretty face. It is insane to think that Steinbeck "loved" this film upon seeing it.
The film opens up at around ¾ of the way through the actual book and still manages to be a jumbled and uneven mess. Major characters from the book are cut out and in the process create giant plot holes. New characters are added such as Abra who changes the relationship between a lot of characters and adds different tones and themes to the film that Steinbeck originally never intended. Another problem the film suffers from is it's extremely uneven pacing, there is too much time wasted on things that never play into the actual arch of the film. Kazan seems like he tries to distract his audience rather than engage them.
Elia Kazan who has shown through his previous films that he is clearly a capable director and this is the fact that makes this film so disappointing. Kazan never seems truly grasp the underlying tones of Steinbeck's book and this translates to the screen. Instead of treating his material with care and insight he instead seems to constantly exploit Dean's "to cool for school" attitude to manipulate the audience into empathizing with a character because of his looks and not his motives. Kazan never exposes the core essence of his characters he lets characters tell you what their characters are thinking instead of letting them show what they are feeling, a major weakness from any director.
The films biggest weakness is that it never devotes enough time to character development. Characters constantly make decision's that seem out of place and unnatural. For instance when Aron becomes insane and leaves for war his fiancé Abra is totally indifferent to the entire situation. Yet her heart breaks for Cal when he is faced with the fact that he may have to live his life without the forgiveness of his father, even though he is the cause of Aron's leaving. It seems the more and more Cal destroys the lives of the people around him the more they take him in with open arms.
Aside from poor character development the film fails to give an adequate amount of back- story for certain characters. The dynamics of the relationship between Adam and his two sons is never really explored beyond face value. It is never explained how exactly Cal finds out that his mother is alive nor does the film explain the motives of the relationship between Cal and the person he starts his bean business with, who appears on screen a total of 3 times and than forgotten.
The film while generally disappointing and uninspired does have its moments from time to time. Jo Van Fleet who gives the best performance in the film won the award for best supporting actress at the 1956 Academy Awards. Van Fleet's film debut proved that she could hold her own even among larger that life actors such as James Dean. Another strong point of the film can be attributed to the film's art department who do a stellar job at recreating the Salinas Valley circa the early 1900's.
Cinematographer Ted McCord is the real heart of this film. McCord takes chances and they pay off. His use of lighting is more moody than most studio films of the 50's and he maintains a sense of movement even when the actor's blocking remains mostly static. McCord is responsible for developing characters that many of the unimpressive actor's in this film could not accomplish through acting. During one scene between Cal and his father McCord highlights their distorted relationship by using innovative camera tilts that gives the scene a real sense of drama that the acting lacked. The biggest tragedy resulting from this film is that Ted McCord didn't even get nominated for an Academy Award.
After all these years East of Eden seems aged and uninspired. James Dean proved that he was easy to watch on camera but didn't prove that he was an accomplished actor. Unfairly critically acclaimed and winner of one deserved Academy Award East of Eden really only ever accomplishes two things. It proves that people love "happy" endings even if they aren't really "happy" and that too many people are suckers for a pretty face. It is insane to think that Steinbeck "loved" this film upon seeing it.