This year, I went to the cinema and saw a film that has long held an earthshaking, talismanic, near-mystical place of importance in my life. It is nearly 70 years old. It was my first time seeing it on the big screen, although I could recite most of the dialogue off by heart; a film I first saw at 13 and never recovered from. It felt nourishingly full-circle, to finally see this film big when it had, in so many ways, been the genesis of my love of cinema and of vintage cinema in particular. The film is Nicholas Ray’s Rebel Without a Cause.
From the vantage of the second row at the inaugural BFI Film on Film Festival, which took place in June 2023, gazing up at the 35mm print, my entire frame of vision was taken up by the lush Technicolor of this hysterical teen melodrama, the outrageous youthful beauty of James Dean, and the hypnotic rhythms of the film’s depiction of alienation. Its star remains 24 forever; from 13 to 32, I
