In the chapter entitled “Box Office,” Rathgeb describes the immediate box office success that Rebel Without a Cause (1955) experienced. The credit for this success was attributed to the rabid support of James Dean’s teenage, female fans, the resoundingly positive reviews the film received, and the relevance of its subject matter. In the midst of this success, the film was still being re-edited to accommodate censors in different national and international venues. The objectionable material included the switch-blade fight, which was re-cut to feature less violence and more crowd reactions, as well as the length of Buzz’s fall from the cliff and associated sounds. British censors especially felt that the film might be exporting juvenile delinquency to  their shores, and labeled the film “adults-only.” Some cities in the American south banned the film completely due to its graphic content. More than a box-office success, the film also produced a faithful fan base, drawing a remarkably high number of fan letters. The fan letters, from teenagers, parents, and delinquency professionals repeated a similar theme: that the film was an accurate portrayal of the youth’s problems that offered those who were suffering solace.

            This chapter demonstrates that Rebel Without a Cause was a critical and commercial success, citing a variety of newspapers reviews and box office figures from the time. Further emphasizing the positive reception of the film is Rathgeb’s inclusion of the content of the fan letters. Clearly, Rebel was an immediate source of identification for teenagers who demanded posthumous awards for the actor, or addressed him as if he were still alive. Finally, the warm domestic reception of this juvenile delinquency picture is in contrast to the British one, giving an international perspective on the social problem.

Crowther, Bosley. “The Screen: Delinquency; ' Rebel Without Cause' Has Debut at Astor.” New York Times, Oct 27, 1955, 28.

 

            In his review of Rebel Without a Cause (1955) Bosley Crowther is both drawn to and repulsed by the film’s controversial content. Crowther explains the logic of the film, that James Dean’s Jim Stark is the product of family dysfunction, chiefly the role-reversal of his parents. He repeatedly mentions the film’s intense and suspenseful nature and the terrifying depiction of a warped younger generation. The famous “chickie run” scene, which features Dean and his leather-jacketed rival racing towards a cliff, is called one of the film’s most chilling moments, and it’s most authentic since such races have been featured in the same periodical before. While Crowther commends the film for episodes of emotional truth and accuracy he concludes by condemning the work as somewhat socially irresponsible. Like Blackboard Jungle (1955), he considers the film excessively violent, featuring brutal scenes that may influence younger viewers, and offend older ones. Crowther also rejects Ray’s unnecessarily critical treatment of parental figures, the police, and other authorities. The Stark parents are so obviously problematic that they detract from the realism that the picture otherwise achieves. Overall the film is not reviewed as bad, being punctuated by strong performances by the entire cast.

            This review demonstrates that film’s like Rebel were viewed as a cause of the juvenile delinquency epidemic, even as today it is considered as an explanation of the condition of the modern teenager. Crowther’s shock at specific sequences in the film show the requirements of decency at the time, and how Rebel challenged those norms. Even after editing the film according to Production Code standards, Rebel  was still highly controversial.

 

Rebel without a Cause: Nicholas Ray in the Fifties, by Peter Biskind. Film Quarterly © 1974 University of California Press. 

           

            Peter Biskind argues that director Nicholas Ray’s films are not as subversive as is commonly assumed by fans of the director and even film scholars. During the 1950s, family values reigned: the preservation of the family, with each parent in his or her gender-appropriate role was seen as the solution to emerging societal problems including homosexuality and juvenile delinquency. Biskind contends that Ray’s films never radically depart from these conservative notions. In his reading of Rebel Without a Cause (1955), the centrality of the family is consistently reaffirmed. The source of protagonist Jim Stark’s alienation is attributed to his problematic family life, where in his mother is dominant and over-bearing and his father is atypically passive. The conclusion of the film rights this deviance. The Stark patriarch learns from his son’s conduct how to be a man by 1950s standards, and his wife is finally quieted. Ray’s faith in the conventional family also explains why Sal Mineo’s Plato must die. Plato is orphaned by his parent’s neglect, and has no proper place in the pseudo-family formed by the romance between James Dean and Natalie Wood. He is the true outsider. As Dean and Wood are healed by their relationship, and can eventually reintegrate into the mainstream, Mineo meets a tragic end. To Biskind, the film occupies a political and moral middle ground, situating itself within the comfortable middleclass mainstream and failing to critique the family as a potentially problematic institution. Biskind does not view the film’s stance as a flaw, but rather a product of its time and the demands of the Hollywood machine in which it was created.

            The piece presents a complex and unconventional reading of what is often considered a truly “rebellious” film, contextualizing the response in the political atmosphere of the 1950s. It provides a historical perspective that complicates the typical reception of the film and its enduring  popularity.

2. Ryunosuke Akutagawa. Rashomon and Other Stories. New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 1952. P17-31 ’In a Grove’ In a Grove is a short story which is about a chapter length by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, who also wrote ‘Rashomon’ which first appeared in the January 1922 edition of the Japanese literature monthly Shincho. The story consists of seven varying accounts of the murder of a samurai. Each section simultaneously clarifies and obfuscates what the reader knows about the murder; eventually creating a complex and contradictory vision of events that brings into question humanity’s ability or willingness to perceive and transmit objective truth.              Akira Kurosawa used this story as the basis for the film, ‘Rashomon’ despite of its name from Akutagawa’s another short story. This provided the symbolic background atmosphere and went into the depths of the human heart as if with a surgeon’s scalpel, laying bare its dark complexities and bizarre twists. These strange impulses of the human heart were expressed through the use of an elaborately fashioned play of light and shadow. The setting was moved to a large forest in the film showing people wandering in to a wider wilderness. Also the script from this story ‘In a Grove portrays human beings who cannot survive without lies to make them feel they are better people than they really are. It shows how human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves.

This is an article written as a tribute to one of India's greatest filmmakers, written on the 50 year anniversary of his directorial debut and his most critically acclaimed film, Pather Panchali. It is written by Andrew Robinson, also the author biographies on Ray titled, Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye and Satyajit Ray: A Vision of Cinema. The author speaks of the likes of Akira Kurosawa who claimed to be one of Ray's greatest admirer's among his fellow directors. He goes on to discuss the making of one of Ray's films titled The Home and The World, written by Rabindranath Tagore. Robinson creates a very distinct, yet down to earth persona of Ray as he talks about the director himself running from pillar to post to organize sets, props and costumes for this particular film. Robinson claims that no director, even Chaplin "was more personally responsible for his own films" and stresses on the nuances that are given special attention to by Ray in each of his films. Recounting an incident when Robinson went to visit Ray on a movie set, there was an incident where a hurricane destroyed most of Ray's set leaving very little for the director to work with. Yet, Ray remained calm and unperturbed as he responded, "We are proof against all hazards. After all, we do have the bare essentials -and the rest is here, in my head. I don't think you need any more than that really."

This article not only shows Ray's global appeal and appreciation as a filmmaker, but also gives examples as to why he reached that status. His debut film Pather Panchali seemed to shake the world of Indian cinema, as well as put Indian cinema on a global platform. The kind of nuances and details Ray stresses upon are very visible in Pather Panchali. In the scene when the family's house gets broken down due to a storm as Apu's father returns from Benaras, yet his reaction to the broken house was not as startling as one would expect it to be. He takes it within his stride and realizes that he needs to take his family and leave for another village - a very practical decision to make in such harsh times. This is representative of Ray's own calmness and elegance with which he handled even the toughest situations.

This article specifically speaks of communication through music while emphasizing the importance of human behavior that is recognized based on the context of music. The author states that while it is easy for even the untrained ear to understand the artists' temperament while listening to a particular song, this analysis can go beyond one person and can be applied to an entire culture. This is possible because one can frame "behavior" in a cultural setting. Thus, if a culture has a particular ‘style' of music that it can be broken down into, this ‘style' is a reflection of the culture itself and a progression or change in that style within a framework of time is representative of change within that culture. The author uses a system of "cantometrics" for rating a song and eventually leading to the possibility of using song as an indicator of "social and psychological pattern in a culture."

Pather Panchali literally translates to "path of song" or "song of the little road." Panchali here specifically refers to a type of narrative folk song that was performed in Bengal in the early twentieth century. Thus the name of the film is itself representative of the time period it was made in, as well as the culture it alludes to. Composed by maestro Ravi Shankar, the music stays noticeably in tune with the emotional stability of the characters that live in a remote village in Bengal in the 1950's. The art of the music is wedded to the truth of the characters themselves and thus the movie as a compositional whole becomes reflective of the lives of a poor family living in Bengal.

This project is a collection of ten sources I would use in support of my thesis: A Hard Day's Night was the first film to successfully unite the popular cultures of both film and music, and was therefore the first true rock and roll film.

 Seelye, John. “A Hard Day’s Night.” Rev. of A Hard Day’s Night, by Richard Lester. Film Quarterly Autumn, 1964: 51-54.

In this film review of A Hard Day’s Night from the Film Quarterly’s autumn of 1964 issue, John Seelye both summarizes and critiques the story of what he calls “A Day in the Life of the Beatles.” Although he admits to watching the film twice (and enjoying it more the second time) Seelye seems to have a hard time admitting that he liked the overall film. He deems the plot as “simple and obvious” and he reduces the entire purpose of the film to making money and paying to see “The Beatles singing your favorite songs.” Despite these occasionally harsh critiques, Seelye does make some points that are redeeming. For example, he claims that “the camera is very much alive: it runs, it jumps, it seldom is caught standing still, unlike the bland flatness of the Elvis movies.”
By making references to the Elvis movies, and particularly how A Hard Day’s Night is different than those films, this article supports my thesis that this 1964 film was the first to successfully unite the pop cultures of film and music. Though often critical, Seelye admits to the fact that this jovial comedy is in some ways innovative. Although it may have similar themes to the Elvis movies, for example the theme of the generational gap between the fun youth and the rigid adults, A Hard Day’s Night does in fact also have cinematic qualities that differentiate it from any other pop music films previously made, such as its camera work, camera angles, and depth to its shots. But perhaps Seelye’s critique is missing the point of the film. Rather than being about story and plot, this film is about The Beatles, which is what makes it reach equally to both the mediums of music and film in a way that no movie had previously done (including the Elvis movies). Consequently, A Hard Day’s Night, may indeed best be thought of as the first true rock and roll film.

Staples, Donald E. "The Auteur Theory Re-examined". Cinema Journal, Vol. 6. (1966 - 1967): 1-7.

Donald Staples chronicles the development of the auteur theory in this article. Starting with the birth of auteur theory in the 1954 Cahiers du Cinima article by Frangoise Truffaut, in which Truffaut attempting to criticize .screen-writers. cinema., in which the creative process essentially ended once the screen-writer finished writing the script. From that point, a director merely put the writing on film without leaving a personal creative imprint on the film. As a result of Truffaut.s article, critics began to put emphasis on auteur theory when writing their reviews. It became necessary for a director to use the film as a way of inventing a personal aesthetic and for each film to demonstrate a step in the overall progression of the director.s creativity. The French New Wave is always closely associated with the concept of auteur theory. Director.s who were part of the movement often took control over the creative aspects of their film and oftentimes films by French New Wave directors are particularly distinct in style to the point where a director.s trademarks become recognizable.