James Dean: Little Prince, Little Bastard

The collar of his coat turned up in New York: Images which have collaborated on building a myth – the image of eternal and misunderstood youth. Unlike Marlon Brando, the proletarian rebel with identifiable goals, James Dean was the timeless and androgynous youthful rebel. His death on the Interstate 46 leads us back to 1950s America, a time when youth was re-interpreted all anew.

I wasn't really quite sure what to expect here but one thing's for sure - it really only regurgitates the stories any fan of James Dean will already know. It uses photography and brief clips from his early television advertising roles to give us a clue as to his rise to fame, and then events take their historical course with little augmentation from the assembled opinions. Of course, it is never a good idea to speak ill of the dead - but here nobody really says anything remotely insightful to help us get into the psyche of this handsome but flawed man. William Bast perhaps comes closest to offering us some sort of "revelation" about his friend, but even then it's all tempered by an obvious affection and he comes across as if holding back. Wanting to tell us more of the man and his peccadilloes, addictions and temperamental nature - but having too much respect to open his heart. There are still some enjoyable bits of archive here and fans will probably watch for completist purposes, but as a source of anything new, interesting or remotely illustrative of the man himself it offers us a rather dull, borderline adulatory, watch that disappoints.