The James Dean Story is a 1957 American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 documentary

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

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Released two years after Dean

James Dean

James Byron Dean was an American film actor. He is a cultural icon, best embodied in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause , in which he starred as troubled Los Angeles teenager Jim Stark...

's death, the Warner Bros. Pictures

Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...

 release chronicles his short life and career via black-and-white still photographs, interviews with the aunt and uncle who raised him, his paternal grandparents, a New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 cabdriver friend, and the owner of his favorite Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 restaurant, and outtakes from East of Eden, footage of the opening night of Giant, and Dean's ironic PSA

Public service announcement

A public service announcement or public service ad is a type of advertisement featured on television, radio, print or other media...

 for safe driving.

Martin Gabel

Martin Gabel

Martin Gabel was an American actor, film director and film producer.-Life and career:Gabel was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Ruth and Israel Gabel, who was a jeweler...

's narration was written by Stewart Stern

Stewart Stern

Stewart Stern is a two-time Oscar-nominated and Emmy award winning American screenwriter. He is best known for writing the screenplay for the iconic film Rebel Without A Cause , starring James Dean.-Writing:...

, who scripted Dean's Rebel Without a Cause

Rebel Without a Cause

Rebel Without a Cause is a 1955 American drama film about emotionally confused suburban, middle-class teenagers. Directed by Nicholas Ray, it offered both social commentary and an alternative to previous films depicting delinquents in urban slum environments...

, and a directing credit was shared by Robert Altman

Robert Altman

Robert Bernard Altman was an American film director and screenwriter known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a stylized perspective. In 2006, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized his body of work with an Academy Honorary Award.His films MASH , McCabe and...

 and George W. George.

The music accompanying the film The James Dean Story was composed and conducted by Leith Stevens. An eponymous album containing this music was released by Capitol Records in 1957, the anonymous sleeve notes of which are surely worth quoting verbatim: ‘Here is the music direct from the soundtrack of “The James Dean Story”, a different kind of motion picture. This is a film in which there are no actors, there is no fiction. It is, instead, the story of a young man in search of himself - a story of a lonely boy growing into a lonely manhood, of a quest for discovery and meaning, of a great talent and zest for creative expression, and of a tragic end which brought more questions than answers.’ The sleeve notes continue ‘The life of James Dean is presented on the screen through the means of a new technique - dramatic exploration of a still photograph. Together with tape recordings, existing motion picture material, and the people with whom he lived and worked, these photographs create the presence of the living character. If there are supporting roles in this picture, the parts must be credited to the people of Fairmount, Indiana, where Dean lived as a boy; to the nine million faces of New York City, where he struggled for recognition as an artist and as an individual; and to the men and women of Hollywood who shared in the development of his career.’

The sleeve notes then go on to describe the music thus: ‘The film’s music is as unusual and exciting as the motion picture itself. Leith Stevens, the composer, captures a haunting reflection of the violent yet strangely understandable uncertainties of modern youth. Stevens, whose musical scores have distinguished such films as “The Wild One”, “Private Hell 36”, “Destination Moon” and “Julie”, describes the loneliness and frustrations, the fury and tenderness of James Dean’s life and the world in which he moved. With his use of such instruments as the recorder, harmonica and bongo drums, and in his unique utilization of the jazz idiom, Leith Stevens produces music with dynamic personal identification, not only for James Dean, but for every boy who’s ever worn a leather jacket and for every girl who’s ever danced without her shoes. Stevens traces the development of Dean throughout his boyhood, his early rebellion against conventions, the discovery of his artistic abilities, and his failure to resolve his personal problems. “Who Am I?” depicts the young Dean groping for self-identification; “Lost Love” is a painful portrayal of a romance without a happy ending; and “Testing The Limits Of Time” is a brilliant montage of the moods and actions which Dean experienced in his last few months. Tommy Sands, the nation’s newest singing sensation, sings the theme song “Let Me Be Loved” by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans.’

The sleeve notes conclude ‘Here, in this album, is music with all the beauty, savageness and pathos which characterises “The James Dean Story”’.

The film is available on DVD

DVD

A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

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