Reader's Pick #1: East Of Eden

The confusion of adolescence, the eclipse of love and jealousy, the concern with one’s origins, and the innocence of a first-time film actor meld into one great emotional surge of a movie that is Elia Kazan’s “East of Eden”.

The film is based on the latter portions of John Steinbeck’s epic (and hefty) saga, focusing on the dynamic of the Trask family in sweeping, picturesque California. We are engaged especially with the younger of two sons, Cal (James Dean), and his relationship with his father and brother. The Trask family patriarch (Raymond Massey) is an aspiring businessman with a preference for Cal’s dutiful older brother Aron (Richard Davalos) and a want to control that which he does not understand.

Cal is heedless and daring. He is also intelligent and business-savvy and tries to win his father’s affection by assisting him in ventures with vegetable refrigeration. Nevertheless, his father’s love continues to be directed toward Aron whom the father feels he can better relate to, leaving Cal to be valued only with authority and disregard.

No one can ever forget the first time the world clamped eyes on James Dean. His hunched figure on the sidewalk in his tawny sweater and quizzical gaze, peering up from beneath a shock of tangled hair became a symbol of adolescence, of being misunderstood, and of wondering where life is going to take you.

“East of Eden” was the first of James Dean’s three films and the only one released during his lifetime. Unpolished by a lack of experience, Dean’s performance is guileless and raw; we can’t take our eyes off of him. Having yet to assume an acting style of his own formation, Dean flavors his performance with an appropriate smack of Marlon Brando influence and a measure of feral improv. His inexperience lends its self exceptionally to a role that requires budding virility charged with vulnerability and insecurity.

Jo Van Fleet plays Kate, Cal and Aron’s long lost mother who has broken free from her husband’s domination to become the madam of a successful local brothel. We learn that it is from her that Cal inherited his high-strung personality and intellect as well as his financial diligence and it is because of this semblance to his mother that he has become estranged from his father. He differs from her only in his desire to please and be loved by her husband.

Just as Cain murders Abel in the Biblical story that was the inspiration behind Steinbeck’s novel, Cal’s romance with Aron’s girlfriend, Abra (Julie Harris) pushes Aron to his breaking point, recklessly enlisting in the military- an act which had previously been against his and his father’s ideals. And making his father question how well he really understood his beloved son.

“East of Eden” is both tender and lurid in its fervent look at the complexity of human growth and familial bonds. It makes clear the necessity to forgive in order to progress, and it expresses our need to understand one another because that which is misunderstood can never be loved.

It is because Cal sought to understand that in the eyes of moviewatchers, he will never grow old.