Rebel Without a Cause (1955) has become synonymous with the idea of teenage rebellion and angst. The film opens to the arrest of Jim Stark, for public intoxication. It is at the police station where the audience is introduced to Judy and John “Plato” Crawford, who will later befriend Jim. This is also where a central theme of the film is revealed. Each character has a longing for a father. Due to this, each has issues with identity and fitting in. Judy is friends with the high school delinquents, Jim is at odds with bullies, and Plato is a social outcast. When all three are witness and involved in the accidental death of their classmate, their teenage turmoil comes to a climax.

The attitudes of the film fall in favor of the lost teenagers. Throughout the film, the parents and fathers they so desperately crave are hardly shown. When any adult character is shown, they are complacent with the actions of the teenagers. During the knife fight between Jim and the school bully, Buzz Gunderson, a cop and professor look on like avid spectators. Jim’s parents are always fighting whenever they appear. Jim’s father is always depicted as less than a man in his scenes, whether he is being chewed out by his wife or wearing an apron. Judy’s father only appears in a scene where he slaps her, and the other time he does nothing to console her when she is clearly distraught. Plato’s parents never appear in the film. The only physical reference to Plato’s father comes in the form of a child support check. We only follow and are given details of the Jim, Judy, and Plato’s plight. The adults in their lives are either distant, uncaring, and unbothered. None of these qualities make up a good role model. Due to this nature, the audience sympathizes and understands the frustrations of the three teen leads.

In the opening scene, mise-en-scéne is used heavily to introduce the main themes of the film. In the opening credits, Jim is laying on the ground interacting with a toy monkey prop. This discarded toy is symbolic of the identity struggle each character faces. A toy without a child to play with it, in the end, has no purpose. Jim then wraps it up using a piece of trash as a blanket, putting it to bed like a good father. Costumes fluctuate color from dull browns to later be contrasted by vibrant reds. These reds are commonly associated with the film’s teenage leads. Red is used in films to signify passion, rage, alarm, and other powerful emotions. In this film, the reds are used to represent all those conflicting tumultuous emotions often experienced by a teenager. Props, costumes, and staging are all aspects of mise-en-scéne heavily used in the film. Furthermore, the film uses cinematic shots such as dutch angles and framing to represent the confusion and unrest, most often felt by Jim.

Each facet of the film worked towards making it feel as if the audience were viewing a play. The film utilizes many medium shots. This emphasizes the character as well as their surroundings. It is able to fit props, costumes, and other characters within the shot while also making it intimate for the audience. Most importantly, it makes the viewer focus on staging, an important aspect of theatre. The film particularly focuses on staging in pivotal scenes. The staggering of characters paired with low angle shots is used to make the audience feel the power dynamics, similar to staging techniques used in theatre. The film’s approach to lighting is also synonymous with a play. Lamps and candlesticks are pronounced as sources of lighting in scenes as they are always shown in the frame. The cinematography for the most part is subtle and works to spotlight the mise-en-scéne that is being used the most. The overall heavy highlighting of mise-en-scéne in each scene is what cultivates the feeling of a play.

The “Stand Up for Me!” scene in Rebel Without a Cause combines all the aforementioned techniques of mise-en-scéne and cinematography. In this scene, Jim is confronting both his parent and realizing who they really are. The scene opens with Jim at the top of a small set of stairs. Staged beneath him are his parents who are bickering. It is in this instance Jim is ready to go to the police to admit his involvement in his classmate’s death. The camera is set at a low angle to emphasize Jim’s moral superiority to his parents at this moment. It is also a medium shot with all three characters stuffed inside, creating a claustrophobic effect. The staging is then changed to Jim being positioned to walk up the stairs. This is meant to convey that he is literally taking the moral high road.

Before Jim can completely make it up the stairs, Jim’s mother cuts him off. This is when the first Dutch angle is introduced. As his mother is now staggered up high, this leaves Jim in the middle, and his father at the bottom of the stairs. His mother forbids him to go to the police, her staging emphasizes this attempt at controlling the situation. The Dutch angle, however, conveys to the audience Jim’s discomfort with her statement. The next Dutch angle used is when Jim’s father also forbids him to go to the police. This Dutch angle is different from his mother’s as Jim is staged at the same level as his father. This signifies how Jim is trying to reason with his father and relate to him, as he has been trying to do throughout the film. As his father sits, Jim sits too while at the same time begging him to be honest with himself. The audience is pushed back into the stagger within the Dutch angle as his mother intercuts. She interrupts the scene exclaiming that they are moving again. She is then posed exactly as Jim posed previously to go up the stairs. However, this time it is as if she’s running away rather than taking the high ground.

After the scene cuts to Jim fighting his father, the medium shot is still maintained causing the claustrophobia, while also working the audience into the action with the intimacy of the closeness. The actual choking of his father is at the forefront of this medium shot, also working to denote the lack of space and air to breathe. The props in this scene also reflect the literal struggle occurring. The TV is suddenly on and not working, only showing static. It is also important to note that before Jim leaves through the door, a frame within a frame is set up. He is not only boxed in by the doorframe, but a portrait of his mother is also in the way. He then grabs the portrait and kicks it in before releasing himself from this interior frame and running away.

It is also significant to note that Jim is wearing a vibrant red jacket in contrast to the dull browns and beiges his parents are in. The red costuming represents his fragile emotional state as is consistent with other characters in the film who wear red. Consistently, throughout this scene, Jim is staged in between his parents, representing the feeling that they are pulling him in opposite directions. His mother is overbearing, speaks too much, voices her opinion constantly, and is controlling of Jim and his father. Contrastingly, Jim’s father is quiet, timid, afraid to speak up and defend Jim, and also provides no guidance. Caught in between his parents, they are tearing Jim apart.

This scene speaks to the greater theme of the film which is the struggle of wanting an ideal father and the consequences that follow. Without a strong home life, Jim is often easily coaxed into situations that hurt his honor, leading him to be involved in that fatal accident. Jim wants more than anything for his father to be a man he can look up to, however, he is not forcing Jim to search for that meaning. Jim has no man to help forge his identity, causing him to lash out. This scene also depicts how desperately Jim wants his father to defend him but when he fails to do so, Jim explodes. Throughout the film, it is shown that Judy only wants her father’s attention. She believes he no longer loves her not that she’s grown up. Plato simply wants a father in his life. An inadequate home life produces turmoil and rebellion. When a teenager rebels too much, it causes death. The film leaves audiences with the knowledge that we will bear the sins of our fathers.