WEIRDLAND: James Byron & Jake

Saturday, September 30, 2006

James Byron & Jake









Today, 51 anniversay of James Dean's death, I remember two films in which his name was brought up in very different angles. In the movie "Come back to the five and dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean" (1982) by Robert Altman, the neurotic Mona (actress Sandy Dennis) has kept alive her memories about meeting James Dean 20 years ago during the filming of "Giant" and she reunites with her friends in a Woolworth store in a small town of Texas. I watched this film on T.V. in the 90's and I could easily relate to the lead protagonist -who recreated a similar role (Honey) in "Who is afraid of Virginia Woolf?"- because her obsession with James Dean's myth is so blindly absorbing that has forced her to live apart of reality. In the end, stuttering a resentless poignant confession, she reveals us why she lied to herself half of her life.

In the other film, the controversial David Cronenberg's "Crash" (1996), where the characters attend staged recreations of famous car crashes for erotic purposes, like the one that killed James Dean, Vaughan (actor Elias Koteas) says: "These were the confident last words of the brilliant, young Hollywood star James Dean as he piloted his Porsche 550 Spyder race car toward a date with death along a lonely stretch of California two-lane blacktop Route 466... Don't worry that guy's gotta see us. The year... 1955. The day... September 30. The time... Now. The first star of our show is Little Bastard. James Dean's racing Porsche. He named it after himself and had his racing number - 130 - painted on it."

10 comments :

  1. I light a candle for Jimmy Dean.

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  2. Your candle is the first, Vanzmotorbike. *first tears*

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  3. Please dont. Im dancing with Elvis..

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  4. I'll try to restrain myself, Vanz, but I'm watching that scene of him smiling "rebelliously withouth a cause" in Sal Mineo's room in company of Natalie Wood. *sighs*

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  5. Both films you review are difficult and bittersweet, and by all accounts just like James Dean was.

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  6. ^^Was he bittersweet:
    ""The only greatness for a man is immortality." -James Dean quote.

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  7. I can learn the history of his motorcycle and where it is today!

    That motorcycle must be impregnated in sexyness. It should be between my legs (uuh).

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  8. Well, Paul Newman is alive today and I'm still fascinated with him, Natalie Merchant (singer of 10.000 Maniacs band) said that if Marilyn Monroe was face-wrinkled, fat and with her tits shagging, people wouldn't be so obsessed, but I think that people like Marilyn or James Dean trascended since they put in front of the cameras, that was the moment in which they got frozen as legends.

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  9. im slow i know, but two of my fav famous people... jimmy and jakey... aww

    x

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