{"id":1651,"date":"2019-12-17T15:00:45","date_gmt":"2019-12-17T22:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=1651"},"modified":"2020-05-23T23:32:55","modified_gmt":"2020-05-24T05:32:55","slug":"movie-east-of-eden-1955","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2019\/12\/17\/movie-east-of-eden-1955\/","title":{"rendered":"MOVIE: East of Eden (1955)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><u><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/6\/6b\/East_of_Eden_%281955_film_poster%29.jpg\/220px-East_of_Eden_%281955_film_poster%29.jpg\" alt=\"East of Eden\" width=\"220\" height=\"332\">East of Eden<br \/>\n<\/u><\/strong>Year: 1955<br \/>\nRating: PG<br \/>\nLength: 118 minutes \/ 1.97 hours<\/p>\n<p><em>East of Eden<\/em> (1955) is one of those films that are famous only for who is in it and who originally wrote it. If this wasn\u2019t one of the few roles James Dean had before his unfortunate death, I\u2019m not sure I\u2019d have watched it. Even if it\u2019s based on a Steinbeck book, I think I\u2019d prefer <em>The Grapes of Wrath<\/em> (1940) or <em>Of Mice and Men<\/em> (1939) to this. Still, there is some artistic merit to this film, even if it didn\u2019t cover the entirety of the source material. It just goes to show how a movie can have staying power just from the people tied to it.<\/p>\n<p>Notably, I did enjoy pieces of the cinematography in <em>East of Eden<\/em>. In particular, when James Dean\u2019s character is on the porch swing, that scene was shot in such a way that I haven\u2019t seen done before or since. And while Dean\u2019s performance certainly starts whiny and annoying, it was enjoyable to see him pull out his acting chops by the end of the film, even if they weren\u2019t used for long. It\u2019s still not his best performance over his short career, but it\u2019s still worth mentioning nonetheless.<\/p>\n<p>As for the plot, nothing stands out to me other than its \u201clove triangle\u201d aspect. It was really the only interpersonal conflict present in the film, with the other critical elements merely being the characters\u2019 poor decisions\u2014and the consequences of them. A lot of the plot seemed like drama for drama\u2019s sake, and I felt it didn\u2019t have anything substantial to say like some of Steinbeck\u2019s other works. Perhaps this was due to the book being cut down significantly to fit in the movie, but it just felt like half of the story wasn\u2019t even there.<\/p>\n<p>An OK film with one of the few James Dean performances in it, I give <em>East of Eden<\/em> 3.5 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n<h2><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\">&nbsp;<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\">&nbsp;<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\">&nbsp;1\/2<\/strong><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>East of Eden Year: 1955 Rating: PG Length: 118 minutes \/ 1.97 hours East of Eden (1955) is one of those films that are famous only for who is in it and who originally wrote it. If this wasn\u2019t one of the few roles James Dean had before his unfortunate death, I\u2019m not sure I\u2019d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,2],"tags":[1079,1672,1976,1314,1977,13,8],"class_list":["post-1651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3-5-stars","category-movie","tag-1079","tag-cinematography","tag-james-dean","tag-john-steinbeck","tag-love-triangle","tag-movie","tag-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1651"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2196,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1651\/revisions\/2196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}