Summary
As the opening credits roll, a seemingly drunken man in a white shirt and black suit jacket is laying down on the sidewalk, tenderly arranging a piece of trash over a toy monkey. Police sirens sound, and the scene shifts to a local police station, where a police officer has arrested the young man. When the attending officer asks what the charge is, the officer on duty replies, "Plain drunkenness." Searching the young man's pockets, the officer on duty finds the toy monkey, which the young man emotionally asks to keep. The attending officer says yes, and tells the young man to go stand against the wall and wait.
Jim stands next to a girl sitting down who is wearing red lipstick and a red dress. She gets up and moves into a private office with one of the policemen, who calls her Judy. Judy tells him her father hates her and her friends. She tells the policeman that her father has called her a "dirty tramp," and has attempted to rub off her lipstick. The policeman speculates that Judy goes wandering "looking for company," to flout her father's authority and "make him pay attention." Judy coldly states she will never be close with anyone and reluctantly gives the policeman her parents' phone number.
Back in the holding area, now draped over a shoeshine chair, the drunken young man wails along with approaching sirens before being scolded by a passing officer. He sees an older woman hunched over a shivering boy named John, and offers his jacket to John, who does not respond. The policeman tells Judy he has called her mother, and Judy seems stricken, thinking they would call her father. She leaves a small compact behind on the chair before being led out of the station. The young man notices her as she exits, and the same policeman who spoke with Judy then invites John and the older woman into his office.
Three people then enter the police station, led by a woman crying "Jim!"—they are the young man's parents and grandmother, coming from a party at a private club. Jim greets them by saying "Happy Easter," and jokingly positions his father in the shoeshine chair, calling him "the king of the ball." Whereas his father seems merely amused by Jim's antics, his mother and grandmother look openly irritated. Jim wanders over to the glass divider between the lobby and the office and asks John, "Why didn't you take my jacket?" before being led away by an officer. Inside the neighboring office, John tells the policeman his nickname is "Plato" and a policeman asks Plato why he "killed those puppies." The woman, who seems to be Plato's caregiver, explains that his parents are separated and his mother is often away, even on his birthday, which is today. She also mentions that Plato's mother does not believe in psychiatry.
In the next room, Jim finds Judy's compact and keeps it while humming "Ride of the Valkyries." Jim's father attempts to explain away Jim's behavior as teenage antics to the police officer, and bickers openly with Jim's mother. Jim's father scolds Jim for not responding to his generosity, and explains that the party at the club was "no place" for Jim. Jim's mother points out, "A minute ago you said you didn't care if he drinks," and Jim's grandmother pedantically adds that he said "a little drink." Jim suddenly bellows, "You're tearing me apart!" and accuses them of arguing in circles. Jim's mother scolds him for the outburst, and Jim's grandmother pointedly suggests that he takes after his mother. The policeman invites Jim into his private office, leaving the rest of the family behind.
Jim tells the policeman to "get lost," and watches his parents continue to bicker through a hole in the wall. When the policeman asks Jim why he isn't wearing his boots, Jim attempts to strike him and misses, tumbling to the floor. The policeman takes his jacket off and puts his gun in his desk drawer, demanding to know the reasons behind Jim's delinquent behavior. Jim pleads to be locked up because he wants to hit somebody, and the policeman suggests striking the desk instead. Jim pummels the desk with his hands and feet before recoiling in pain, and tearfully admits that his parents move around often to protect him—the last time they moved, Jim had attacked another boy who called him chicken. Jim looks back through the keyhole at his family, still mid-argument, and criticizes his father for not standing up to his mother, admitting he never wants to be like him.
Jim refers to his home life as a "zoo" and a "circus" and speculates about having just one day when he could feel neither confused nor ashamed, but merely that he belonged, before trailing off. The policeman advises Jim to come in and talk whenever he feels like his family problems or violent urges are becoming insurmountable. Jim apologizes to his family, who forgive him. Jim's father offers the policeman cigars, but the policeman declines. When Jim's father offers them again, Jim's mother scolds him for insisting, and the family leaves the police station for the night.
Analysis
The opening scene of Nicholas Ray's Rebel Without A Cause is significant for a number of reasons. First, and most obviously, it establishes the film's main character—Jim Stark, played by James Dean. The angst, turmoil, and alienation felt by Jim Stark would go on to become synonymous with Dean's star image, and indeed a symbol for an entire male generation, especially after Dean's untimely death at the age of 24. The bright red hue of the credits anticipates the importance of the color red over the course of the film, which Ray uses to highlight its most iconic objects, such as Jim's red windbreaker, and Judy's red coat and red lipstick. The immediate usage of bright red also emphasizes the fact that Ray's film was a full color production, a decision that Warner Brothers made after sensing James Dean's rising stock as a Hollywood actor.
The opening shot of Jim tenderly arranging a piece of trash over a toy monkey, using a leaf as a pillow, foreshadows his tender gesture at the end of the film where he zips up the jacket on Plato's lifeless body. The scene is notable for having been suggested by Dean himself—it wasn't in the original script. The scene, which relies entirely on a moving image and contains no spoken lines, immediately raises a problem that the film will go on to examine— namely, the difficulty men have expressing affection and embodying gentleness, in a way that remains compatible with conventional notions about masculinity, integrity, and honor. Jim's emotional plea to the attending officer to be able to keep the toy expresses his capacity and desire to be nurturing and fatherly.
Ray renders the police station sequence with a degree of social realism that was provocative for its day, confronting the social deviance and criminal pathology behind adolescent behavior in an unflinching, even sensationalist manner. The investigator's first line to Plato—"Why did you drown those puppies, Plato?" —makes clear the kind of stark delinquency that Ray was asking audiences to confront—and to understand, and maybe even forgive—over the course of the plot. Jim's drunken belligerence, Judy's implied sexual recklessness, and Plato's violent predisposition are all introduced in this sequence. Ray uses the investigative, emotional thrust of these interview scenes to encourage audiences to try to empathize with the psychological motivations behind their actions, rather than merely impose judgment on them.
The sequence also sets up two important symbolic objects that will become important as the plot unfolds: Judy's compact and Jim's jacket. Judy leaves her compact behind on the seat where Jim later sits, taking it with him. The compact, which contains a mirror inside, reflects the intimate, genuine side of Judy's personality that she carefully guards from others, especially when hanging around Buzz and the rest of the gang. Jim's jacket, which he offers to no avail in this scene to a shivering Plato, establishes the arc of their relationship: Plato is initially cold and unresponsive to Jim's simple gesture of goodwill, but in the final scene of the film, when Jim offers up his jacket again, Plato is finally able to accept.
Perhaps the most famous moment of this opening sequence—and the entire film—is Jim's primal scream to his parents: "You're tearing me apart!" This literal "cry for help" crystallizes the theme of the entire opening sequence, which establishes he ways in which the parental figures in the story have variously failed or ignored their children. Whereas Plato's parents are absent and Judy's father resents her blossoming sexual autonomy, Jim's parents (and grandmother) are more interested in cultivating petty disputes with each other than they are in listening to Jim. The dysfunction of the Stark family, who argue openly with each other in front of the policemen, stems from Jim's father's inability to stand up to his mother. Jim's father's failure to embody authoritative masculinity contrasts with the tough-talking policeman Ray, who deftly dodges Jim's punch and encourages him to release his anger rather than ignore it. This, along with Jim's confession that he attacked another boy for calling him "chicken," foregrounds the fact that the film will interrogate masculinity as an ideal, and ask to what extent masculinity is ethical, and when man-on-man violence is justifiable.
