Historical Context

An informed film viewer must first watch a movie within its historical context. The director, actors and all craft persons are working within their now, not ours, so current events during production may influence filmic depictions.

A quick example: Rebel Without a Cause was released in 1955. Viewed with a 21st century eye, the film is dated and some parts are almost silly. Jim, Judy and Plato, the main characters, agonize over seemingly trivial things until the end. The acting is heavy handed, and the ending thuds.

Now put yourself in 1955. The nation is racially, ethnically, religiously and sexually segregated. Pre-Civil and Women’s Rights, minorities and women are second class citizens with negligible socio-political power. Middle aged white men, represented by President Eisenhower, a decorated war hero, rule everything.

The mid-50s teen was raised an era of societal conformity. Expressions of individuality were frowned upon or outright shunned, and the allusion to homosexuality was verboten (the Hayes Code did not allow open discussions of “deviant” behavior).

Got your mid-century head on? Watch the film again. If your viewer is an adult, you might see a bunch of middle-class kids making much ado about nothing and blaming everything on the parents. But if your alter ego is young, Jim and Judy are at odds with their parents, while Plato is abandoned by his. Each is something of an outcast, equally desperate to be part of the group but also trying to find his/her way. You understand their angst, and maybe even identify with their plight.

Rebel was made in the 1950s about the 1950s, but the same is true about historical pieces. I’m not going to go into a long analysis of The Searchers, but remember the historical context. The 1956 film depicts the beginning of the end of the Wild West, when white settlers could do whatever they wanted to Indians, at the same time that Brown v. Board of Education made racially segregated education illegal.

Think about it.