He lived fast, died young. James Dean, the rebel without a cause, returns to the cinema – Express

In the most iconic image of James Dean, the young actor is in Times Square, New York, 1955. Immersed in a wintry day in an overcoat, the rain to fall on him, goes hand in his pockets, hunched shoulders and a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. There is the image a loneliness that calls the stories of those who come to the big city in search of their dreams.

lens Behind is Dennis Stock, a photographer in early career, tired of red carpets and background movies, Dean sees in the opportunity to make a real photo report about a rising star. “Life” by Anton Corbijn, which debuts this Thursday, is the story of this unlikely friendship between Dean (Dane DeHaan) and Stock (Robert Pattinson).

When the photographer knows the actor, a House Party director Nicholas Ray, few imagined that this young man created a farm in Fairmount, Indiana, would rise so quickly to the firmament of Hollywod. “East of Eden”, the first of only three films that Dean starred, had not yet released, but after seeing the film in a private screening, Stock proposes join him in New York in the days leading up to the premiere of the film . I wanted to publish the work in “Life” magazine, which, at a time when the color TV still only beginning to take off, was the Olympian photojournalism, having come to sell 13.5 million copies per issue.

A memorable photo in Times Square was almost not to happen. After days to follow Dean without many opportunities to shoot as he wished, Stock abandons the idea and accepts another service in Japan. It was supposed to say goodbye there, in the square, but the photographer decides to take the camera one last time, despite rain. Since there were …

Excited to have finally managed to capture some of Dean’s soul, Stock quit work in Japan and decides to accompany the actor on a trip to the family farm this. He wanted to “reveal the environments affected and shaped the unique character of James Dean,” explain in 2005 in the book “James Dean: 50 Years Ago” (James Dean: 50 Years). And so born a remarkable series of photographs would be published in “Life” on March 7, 1955, just before the premiere of “East of Eden”, entitled “Moody New Star” (New Star Temperamental).

“Life” is not a film about the life – too short – the talented Dean. “It has no biographical intent, is not a biopic,” Corbijn said in an interview published on 12 in the magazine and the Express. Nor is it about the life of a talented photographer, a man who obsessively lived his work, neglecting to family. Instead, focuses on a very specific time Dean’s life, a few months before his death. “During this period, there are two types that will become friends. And that friendship will have an effect on the lives of each other, “says the director, a former photographer who debuted in performing with” Control “(2007), about the life of another star who disappeared early: Ian Curtis, the lead singer of . Joy Division, who committed suicide at age 23

The film shows us a different Dean that he was in the minds of several generations: fragile, introspective, self-enclosed, sometimes derogatory’s own talent. Many critics surrendered to the performance of Robert Pattinson’s skin Stock finally get come off their youth idol image captured with the “Twilight” saga, but the big movie role is to Dane DeHaan, a name that worth decorate. We see it, for example, in “The Cure for Wellness” by Gore Verbinksi, and “Valerian” by Luc Besson, but for now, it’s like Dean giving another solid step in his statement in Hollywood.

September 30, 1955, a few weeks before the premiere of “Rebel Without a Cause”, masterpiece of Nicholas Ray that defined her image of “rebel without a cause,” James Dean died at the wheel of a Porsche . A myth was born.