In a 1955 review, The Hollywood Reporter said of James Dean's star-making turn in East of Eden, "He is that rare young thing, a young actor who is a great actor, and the troubled eloquence with which he puts over the problems of the misunderstood youth may lead to his being accepted by young audiences as a sort of symbol for their generation." Within six months, the 24-year-old Dean was dead. By concentrating on the most significant period in the screen icon's brief life, AMERICAN MASTERS "James Dean: Sense Memories" brings entirely new focus to the Dean legacy. At the same time, the documentary offers unique insight into a critical time in American cultural history, and the catalytic emergence of a star. "It was so clear that he was a special person," says director Mark Rydell in "Sense Memories." "Every moment that you spent with him you knew you were with an original. Strange and peculiar and arresting - you couldn't take your eyes off him." AMERICAN MASTERS "James Dean: Sense Memories" airs on PBS Wednesday, May 11, 2005 (check local listings). The one-hour documentary is directed by the Emmy Award-winning producer/director Gail Levin. Warner Brothers provided rarely-seen screen tests, outtakes and extensive film clips from East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant. Dean earned posthumous Oscar nominations for leading roles in his final two films - the only actor so honored. "It's incredible to believe that James Dean died 50 years ago. His on-screen persona will forever symbolize adolescent angst and alienation," says Susan Lacy, creator and executive producer of AMERICAN MASTERS, which has won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Primetime Non-Fiction Series for five of the last six years. "But this film reaches far beyond Dean's movie image, exploring how a very real childhood of loss and abandonment informed his tragic characters, making them not only believable, but totally unforgettable." Evocative of the 1950s era of beatniks and hotrods, a sizzling New York jazz scene and Brando on Broadway, "Sense Memories" is a precise slice of Dean's life: the brief period between the start of filming East of Eden and the end of filming Giant. As Dean's East of Eden co-star Lois Smith says in the film, "Sense Memories" is a look back "at this boy, at that year." "Everyone who appears in this film knew Dean personally, had a unique connection to him, and he still has a hold on them after all these years. It's part of what makes his story so compelling," says Levin. "In a stunningly short trajectory, only about 18 months, Dean achieved something no one else ever has." Each of Dean's film characters - the rebel Cal Trask, the anguished Jim Stark and the consummate outsider Jett Rink - echo themes from Dean's own life. After his mother's death, nine-year-old Dean was sent from California back to Indiana, to live on a farm with his aunt and uncle. He didn't see his father again until he was 18. "He understood pain," says actor Martin Landau. "Young people usually don't have that kind of pain, or don't wear it as externally." Remarkably, in the space of less than two years, Dean worked with three of the greatest directors in American cinema: Elia Kazan, Nicholas Ray and George Stevens. Through telling recollections, "Sense Memories" explores the way these artists tapped Dean's enormous on-screen presence. Actor Eli Wallach recalls Raymond Massey, who played the father in East of Eden, complaining to Kazan about Dean's irksome acting methods. While assuring Massey he'd speak to the young actor, Kazan privately told Dean to keep up his irritating behavior, allowing real-life tension to explode on screen. The film also offers a frank look at the off-screen Dean, who easily slipped from shy to seductive and from needy to obnoxious. Magnum photographer Dennis Stock, who accompanied Dean on a trip home to Indiana and later took the now-famous picture of him in Times Square, describes the actor as an unreliable, evasive insomniac who "looked like hell most of the time ... He couldn't have been shabbier." It's been 50 years since the men and women appearing in "Sense Memories" walked and talked with James Dean. But time hasn't diminished the profound influence Dean had on their lives. Bill Bast met the aspiring actor on the UCLA campus when Dean was "fresh off the farm in Indiana and still smelled a little bit of hayseed." Now, Bast says, "You can't replace, you can't forget anyone as dynamic and as interesting as James Dean ... I'm not allowed to forget him ... I am literally stuck with James Dean."
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