BEING Yourself
In a pivotal scene from Elia Kazan’s 1955 John Steinbeck adaptation, East of Eden, wayward son Cal Trask (James Dean) presents his father Adam (Raymond Massey) with a wad of money, earned from his wartime bean-growing business. The intention of his gesture is to win respect and affection. Adam, viewing the venture as a form of war-profiteering, refuses to accept the gift, and says, “I’d be happy if you’d give me something like your brother’s given me. Something honest and human and good.” Cal, devastated by what he views as another emotional rejection, wails as he tearfully embraces his shocked father, then flees the house. It’s a strikingly unvain performance from Dean, his anguish palpable enough that audiences might recoil, uncomfortable with such a naked theatrical display. But it’s real – a fullbodied, shaking and yowling portrait of defeat.
A similar moment occurs late in Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari, when the Yi family undergo a crisis on the farm they have sacrificed so much to keep alive. There are, indeed, numerous parallels between Steinbeck’s novel (which was based on family exploits) and Chung’s autobiographical film. Set some 60 years apart, these twin explorations of familial discord playing out against rural backdrops touch on similar themes of faith, love, and the struggle for acceptance and greatness. But another connecting force comes in the form of Dean, whose spirit lingers both in Minari’s DNA and the performance delivered by Steven Yeun as struggling patriarch, Jacob, who moves his young family from California to a farm in rural Arkansas in pursuit of the American Dream.
The real story began before Chung was born, when his father still lived in Korea. “James Dean was a huge part of his life. Somehow his movies convinced my dad to move to America, and it’s weird because you watch those same movies and they should be dissuading you from coming to the US because there’s so much angst there,” says Chung. “But my Dad would see the backdrop of America and he felt like it was a place of opportunity, and he would see James Dean as
