Life

This review is going to mainly going to be about the Portrayal of James Dean and not the other elements of the movie so I'll get right to it. To put it frankly, I didn't buy Dane Dehaan as James Dean. The resemblance just isn't there. This is a role where looks matter and Dane Dehaan can't really fill the James Dean 'silhoutte' or bring the stature and good looks needed to pull off James Dean. The characters James Dean played in his movies were all studs because James Dean was in fact a total stud. No offense to Dane Dehaan but we've never seen him play a stud before. Most of his roles are teenaged characters who are troubled, quiet and kind of physically unintimidating and prone to getting bullied . Not exactly James Dean material.

We didn't really get James Dean here. It was basically just watching Dane Dehaan play an aloof young guy who sounds kind of like Kermit the frog and acts like a stoner burnout. You can't really get edgy and charismatic James Dean from Dane Dehaan. As good as an actor the guy is he just couldn't really pull it off for this role.

The rest of the movie isn't worth saying much about even though good efforts were made all around. With the right actor playing James Dean this could have been a good movie maybe even a great one depending on the performance. If you stuck around till the end they show the pictures of the real James Dean which was the real pay off of the movie for me.

A movie about James Dean stands or falls by the portrayal of the man. Everything else is secondary to capturing that unique mesmerizing person.

I am a straight male, yet I remember the first time I googled that name and started browsing his photos. There was something there completely out of the ordinary. Strength with fragility, sadness with mischievousness, rebellion resting in the moment. Its like watching young Marlon Brando or Ryan Gosling in a movie like Drive, there is something extraordinary there your brain cant define but can understand.

Dane DeHaan, who I don't know outside of this movie, could probably portray Justin Bieber just fine, but playing James Dean requires a different beast of an actor all together.

Potentially this could have been the most interesting work from Anton Corbijn, as he is himself a well-known portrait photographer. The story is about Magnum photographer Dennis Stock (Pattison) convincing a reluctant upcoming James Dean (DeHaan) to follow him to make a series of portraits. As you might know, Magnum set new standards in photography and Stock in his famous series contributed to a completely different view on portrait photography of stars: natural setting, confrontational, honest and direct.

During the movie, a bond grows between the two, as Dean turns out to be an atypical Hollywood star ignoring the rules set out by his superiors resulting in several confrontations. Stock largely ignores his duties to his former wife and their child and becomes obsessed by Dean's idiosyncrasy. The second part is the most interesting as it almost deconstructs Dean's life and character: Dean comes from a farmland family of Quakers, likes local poets and is fond of his background and actually despises stardom. Stock is first able to shoot pictures in New York (you probably know the famous photograph) and in Indiana.

So what are the downsides: the pacing is too slow, the editing certainly not perfect and the most important trap: Corbijn as photographer is too much in love with the story, finding details relevant that are actually not that relevant. The question keeps popping up: Why does this matter? Life fails in a way as a mood piece, but is still a relatively good and stable character drama as the deconstruction works well.

Maybe both Pattison and DeHaan are too light to pull this off more convincing, but one role is certainly amazing: Ben Kingsley as Jack Warner is so spot-on you will be remembering the character despite the limited screen time.

Not that this necessarily pertains to the period of interaction between Dean and a photographer, but Dean was a race car driver. He was heavily involved in that during that year. So he wasn't just a restless spirit laying around. He had a daredevil spirit and lots of races. He was portrayed here as a bored farm boy. What I did like was showing how people get to know each other over time, and how life is actually fairly boring even for a burgeoning star during the inactive hours of a week. Even James Dean has to eat, sleep, visit family, and sign paperwork.

But there was not much reason shown for anyone to find Dean interesting. Even the photographer, who was initially captivated by some indescribable quality, scolded him for being a whiny self-interested nobody.

Having said that, and having read comments from Dean fans, I am willing to believe that the real Dean had charisma and a face that expressed pain and depth.

I liked the farm sequence. It showed you that Dean wasn't really a rebel, because he loved his family, his home town, and America. Everyone comes from somewhere. He's from a sleepy small town in the Midwest and his mother died when he was young. That should explain his sleepy demeanor tinged with sadness.

The nudity was great, because that girl was beautiful. But it was totally gratuitous. There is absolutely no reason to show boobs when two people are talking in bed.

You do get a sense that the country is on the brink of a new vibe, with the balance of old and new in the culture., and our characters' comfort in hanging out with black folks.

Look, there's not much to this story, but it is mildly interesting to see the life of a struggling early Hollywood photographer, and a fresh star. Plus I always enjoy depictions of male bonding, with all their ups and downs.

Unless those things interest you, avoid it. Because like life itself, this thing is dull.

"Life (2015)" is the fourth film directed by notorious Dutch photographer and director Anton Corbijn, in which we get a look into the life of James Dean. Corbijn proves to be an accomplished director since the release of his debut and gritty masterpiece "Control (2007)". A film that set the bar so high it became hard to satisfy his newly found fan-base. After his escapades with the thriller genre he returns to the genre he became known for, a biopic. And this time our favorite "Rebel" gets the "Corbijn- treatment", or so we hope.

As the title suggests the story revolves around Dennis Stock, a photographer for the magazine "Life", who gets the assignment to shoot rising and rebellious Hollywood actor James Dean, before the release of his first headlining film "East of Eden (1955)". A friendship develops between both gentleman and the pair travel to L.A., New York and Indiana to get those precious shots Stock is longing for.

DeHaan rather gives us his own interpretation of James Dean. The resemblance between portraying and portrayed actor is marginal. Stock on the other hand is portrayed by Pattison who gives a dull performance although the concept of his role feels dull on its own, something we can't blame Pattinson for directly. Stock's assignment and private life should feel like a struggle though this is poorly translated into the script.

Throughout the movie there are sparks of chemistry between both but in the end it's sad to see that this chemistry is absent for most of the film. It's because of these aspects this period drama sometimes feels like it's sleepwalking throughout its own story, which is a shame considering the fact that "Life" can be considered as almost a personal film for Corbijn. You might expect that a photographer making a film about photography would create something more lively than the overall boring "Life".

Maybe Corbijn made us spoiled little brats, we expect too much from the director that gave us "Control", while you can't blame an audience for expecting something more daring than "Life". James Dean was not only a fascinating character, he also possessed a complexity towards his sexual identity, something the film largely ignores. In conclusion there are some pleasing touches, such as the beautiful cinematography or a refreshing cameo by Ben Kingsley, but in the end this film becomes a frustrating experience for Corbijn fans.