OVP: East of Eden (1955)

Film: East of Eden (1955)

Stars: Julie Harris, James Dean, Raymond Massey, Richard Davalos, Bul Ives, Jo van Fleet, Lois Smith

Director: Elia Kazan

Oscar History: 4 nominations/1 win (Best Director, Actor-James Dean, Supporting Actress-Jo van Fleet*, Adapted Screenplay)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

It is Oscar week, and so I am making a point this week of highlighting five recent films each afternoon that I have seen that were nominated for Academy Awards (we do this most weeks, but I'm making a point of it only being Oscar-nominated films for the next five days).  We're going to start off such a prestigious moment with East of Eden, one of the more important American films that I've ever seen, and the only one of the "James Dean trio" of classics that I've never seen prior to this past weekend (Dean received onscreen credit for only three of his movies).  Going in, I had mixed expectations.  Dean is brilliant as an onscreen performer, sensual & such a rich onscreen presence it's difficult to grasp he only made three movies, and Elia Kazan generally makes stupendous movies.  But I also don't care for John Steinbeck, and after last week's weird date with Tortilla Flat, I don't really know what to think of him onscreen.  As a result, I went into this with mixed expectations, and coming out of it...that's kind of how I felt as well.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is in some parts inspired by the story of Cain-and-Abel, with father Adam Trask (Massey) filling in for God, and his son's Aron (Davalos) and Cal (Dean) playing the parts of Abel & Cain, respectively.  Cal is a sensitive boy, one who hangs around with "bad girls" (puritanical views of sex are rampant in East of Eden), and in the process he discovers that his "dead" mother is not dead at all.  She is instead a prostitute in a neighboring town named Cathy (van Fleet), who refused to marry Adam & lives a "life of sin," something that Aron doesn't know about as he's canonized his mother without one present.  As the film wears on, Aron decides not to enlist in World War I (more on that in a second), and Cal profits off of the war by buying beans early and then selling them for a profit.  Aron on the night of his father's birthday upstages Cal using the bean money to pay back a debt to his father (who took one of Cal's ideas early in the film that failed) by announcing his engagement to Abra (Harris), who at this point is clearly in love with Cal, not Aron.  The film ends with Cal cruelly telling Aron about his mother, and Aron thus running off maniacally into the night, his worldview shattered & his relationship with Abra "taken" from him by Cal.  This causes Adam to have a stroke, and while he's about to die, he forgives his son Cal & shows that he loves him, ending the comparison to Cain-and-Abel.

The movie is gargantuan, a big epic, one of those movies of the mid-1950's that was trying to show the grandeur of movies as a way to compete against the convenience of television (if you wonder why epics became so en vogue during the 1950's compared to the westerns, melodramas & film noir of the 1940's, this was a big part of it-getting people out-of-the-house).  The film, though, doesn't really have enough to say about its plot, and part of that is that it has no confidence in the Aron character.  Unlike Dean, Davalos did not become an icon or even a headliner (this is certainly his best-known role today, and after 1955 it'd be five years before he'd make another picture), and he has no concept of how complicated & vital this character is.  Aron is an unusual Abel, as he's essentially a conscientious objector in World War I (in most films, he'd be labeled a coward & not celebrated at all by his fellow townsmen), but this is only hinted at, and his breakdown after learning of his mother's occupation is left unresolved.  It's hard to look at this part and not wonder what Paul Newman, who was at one point considered for this role, would have done as Aron.  Newman oftentimes played conflicted young men (he'd do so brilliantly two years later in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), and while he might've been too old for the role, he would have gotten through some of the tougher turns of a complicated character that Davalos was incapable of achieving.

With Aron on the back-burner, it's really all about Dean & van Fleet for me.  James Dean is such a mesmerizing screen presence, and while he doesn't have the raw sensuality that he brought to Rebel, he exudes a draw that makes you understand why the women onscreen feel the need to shelter him, even the characters like Jo Van Fleet's Cathy who shouldn't.  Van Fleet won an Oscar for her work, and it's really solid performing.  She has to play everything below-the-surface, her madame being someone who resents the fact that Cal even exists, but also she morbidly wants to know him more-their scene together where he asks for money, and the later sequence where he brings Aron to her (where she understands the contempt that not only Aron but also Cal hold her in, realizing that she's viewed as a punishment rather than someone to be forgiven) is heartbreaking, gut-wrenching stuff, and she nails the arc.  

But these are not big enough parts of East of Eden to make it deserve its "classic" status.  Julie Harris is miscast (it's so weird to realize she gets top billing instead of Dean) as Abra, both because she's too old for the role and because she doesn't have a natural chemistry with Dean.  Harris' sort of dazed-and-confused presence onscreen (think a dramatic Zoey Deschanel with a 1960's bohemian vibe) is an acquired taste, and one I don't really care for; she's more celebrated as a theater actress than a film star, and that makes sense as her affected speech patterns are a better fit for the stage.  Lois Smith (yes, the Lois Smith) gets one scene with Dean, and her nervous energy as a girl struck by this beautiful young man is a much better fit and I honestly spent most of the movie wishing she'd return.  As a result, we get a sturdy, but frequently misguided, picture from Elia Kazan, made immortal because it's one of only three James Dean ever made.