PASADENA, Calif. — Although James Dean is generally viewed, nearly half a century after his untimely death, as a brooding, almost morose character, actor/director Mark Rydell says his friend had a "great sense of humor and great buoyancy and tremendous energy" — albeit with a dark edge.
Rydell recalled a time in the early '50s when he and Dean were walking through Manhattan, just after appearing in a live TV production. "Jimmy and I were talking about bullfighting, which was one of his passions," Rydell said. "Suddenly, I sense out of the corner of my eye a bus hurtling down Madison Avenue," Rydell said. "And he whipped off his jacket, he jumped in the way of the bus and did a bullfighter's pass with his jacket. The bus, I promise you, flicked his shirt. I leapt back 10 feet, and he laughed hysterically with the pleasure and the fun of teasing me and having cheated death once again.
"I knew at that moment that his life was not to be a long one."
Indeed it was not. Dean died on Sept. 30, 1955, at the age of 24, after starring in only three movies — "East of Eden," "Rebel Without a Cause" and "Giant." But that was only the beginning of the legend — a legend that's both celebrated and dissected in the TNT movie "James Dean," which premieres Sunday at 6, 8 and 10 p.m. on the cable channel.
Rydell directed from a script by Israel Horovitz — a script that attempts to explain both the prodigious talent and the tragedy that was James Dean's life. His mother died when he was but 9, and his father (Michael Moriarty) then completely rejected him.
"The truth of the matter is that Jimmy was a deeply tortured young man, driven by the traumas of his youth," Rydell said. "Those traumas, those wounds, shaped his personality (and) made it necessary for him to carve a position for himself in life . . . where he felt he was worth something, because those events — essentially, the abandonment of both his parents — left him feeling worthless. And he developed a need to assert himself. He wanted desperately to be somebody. To be brilliant and great. He achieved that greatness, and I think that very few people know the story behind Jimmy. And how tortured and agonized his life was even during the moments of his greatest success."
"This is really a film about a young man's struggle with his father, and that young man happened to become James Dean, the movie star," Horovitz said.
Rydell said he knew immediately that James Franco ("Freaks and Geeks") was the guy to play Dean, but that he had to talk the young actor into accepting the role. "I consider my discovery of James Franco as James Dean to be a miracle. . . . His execution of the part still leaves me breathless. It's amazing how accurate his work is."
And Franco returned the favor, saying he drew on Rydell's personal knowledge of Dean in creating the character. "I think he had a dead-on bead on James Dean's emotional life and turmoil and what drove this tortured man to become something great. . . . I think we had a wonderful connection," Franco said, "and we found Jimmy together on the set during the movie."
Franco said he also talked with other people in Dean's life — friends and co-stars like Martin Landau, Dennis Hopper and Corey Allan; old girlfriends like Liz Sheridan and Christine White. And he discovered that, despite some tendency to "bicker over certain facts," he got "the picture of a dedicated artist who would sacrifice anything for his work. A deeply feeling individual and, I guess, someone who wanted to be the best and wanted to break all restrictions and do whatever he wished."
And, a bit of a method actor himself, Franco got into character by doing everything from taking up smoking (he's since quit) to trying to re-create Dean's emotional distance from others.
"I isolated myself a lot during the filming. I didn't talk with my family or loved ones," he said. "So, yeah, that did have quite an emotional effect on me."
Enough so that it took him a "couple of weeks" to pull out of a "funk" after filming ended.
Rydell himself appears in the movie, turning in a great performance as studio chief Jack Warner. "Strangely enough, I have a personal relationship with everybody in the film except (Dean's) father," Rydell said. "My relationship to Jack Warner was peripheral because I was a young actor at the time and he wasn't the most cordial of gentlemen. But he was friendly to me and he viewed me as an up-and-comer in the acting profession.
"Little did he know what I was going to do to him 40 years later."
"James Dean" is far from a complete biography, however. It concentrates on the making of "East of Eden" but pays scant attention to "Rebel" and little more to "Giant." There's some great stuff surrounding his relationship with "Eden" director Elia Kazan (Enrico Colantoni) and co-star Raymond Massey (Edward Herrmann) — but that later makes you wonder about other relationships that are either glossed over or missing altogether.
And the telefilm includes a disclaimer, indicating that, while based on fact, it also depends on more than one "educated guess" by the filmmakers. (The resolution of Dean's relationship with his father would seem to be chief among them.)
But, all things considered, "James Dean" seems certain to fan the flames of its subject's still-burning icon status. "It's 45 years after his death. He died at age 24 and he made three movies, and we're all in a room talking about him," Horovitz said. "So something went on."
TNT's sister channel, Turner Classic Movies, follows up "James Dean" on Monday with the black-and-white 1957 documentary "The James Dean Story" (Monday, 6 and 9:30 p.m., TCM), which is chiefly notable as the first film produced and directed by Robert Altman. At times illuminating — featuring interviews with Dean's friends and family members — it's also at times unintentionally humorous (given its dated presentation), and it is oddly lacking in important facts. Dean's father, who apparently played such a huge part in his life, isn't mentioned at all.
And the channel is also offering two of Dean's three starring vehicles on Monday — 1955's "Rebel Without a Cause" (7:30 p.m., TCM) and 1956's "Giant" (11 p.m., TCM).
E-MAIL: pierce@desnews.com