Film No. 63 (2015) Life. September 4th.

Film No. 63 (2015) September 4th.  5.45 PM BACKLOT West Perth.

"There's an awkwardness, something very pure, I can't figure it" (Photographer Dennis Stock describes his subject James Dean to his agent in the hope he might secure a paid assignment creating a photo essay on Dean).

 

 

Talk about risk taking in film making. Life depicts James Dean just prior to his rapid rise to fame and subsequent death. Trying to depict a legend of the screen has been tried with varying degrees of success previously so how does Life fare in that maze of films best described as of the bio pic variety? Well, it fares well, very well indeed.

 

Director Anton Corbijn is a very thorough film maker and his success (Control, The American) quite simply is replicated often because he never over complicates his subjects. With the help of writer Australian novelist Luke Davies (Candy), Cobijn brings to life the a friendship, the unlikely friendship of freelance photographer Dennis Stock and James Dean. Put simply Dean, sees something in a young man (Dean) which separates him from the pack (actors), he want's to be the first to capture the unique Dean in a photo essay he might sell to the most famous magazine of the time, LIFE.

 

Robert Pattinson as Stock plays the lead to perfection. Stock is a brooding, ambitious man with few redeeming features. Dean (Dane Dehaan) however is solemn, single minded and impulsive in a charismatic way. Dehaan steels the screen with his relaxed performance. Stock and Dean build a friendship of real substance as they discuss life and at the same time frame the images which have become so famous as part of a March 1955 edition. 

 

Part of the majesty of the film is the narrative leading to the backstory as to how and why some of the now famous shots came into being. The famous Time Square shot of a sodden Dean walking the wet streets with a smoke in his mouth and hands deep in his coat pockets occurs as so many great shots do; Stock shot it on a whim. I, like so many, was not born when Dean died tragically but Life allowed me to feel something of the pain so many people must have felt those 60 years ago. Corbijn's film took me to another time and place and I was both entertained and moved.  10GUMS.