James Dean: Forever Young (2005)
*** 1/2 (out of 4)
Extremely impressive documentary about the final five years in the life of James Dean. The documentary, narrated by Martin Sheen, is certainly unlike any other you're going to see. For starters, there are countless documentaries, magazine articles and countless other tributes to Dean. I mean, after all there is a reason he's still so highly recognized all these years after his death. If you want to learn about his childhood then there's plenty of information out there. If you want to hear about his public life then that too is out there. This documentary doesn't just focus on his life, career or death but instead it tries to show you a little bit of everything that he was doing. Using film clips, TV episodes, home made movies and countless other items, this documentary starts at the beginning of Dean's career and travels down to his final three movies. I really enjoyed how the documentary tried to cover every aspect of Dean's professional life. We get to see countless clips that would take you hours to track down via the web or other sources and to have all of it within an 88-minutes film is just terrific for fans. We see the work that he did on TV. We get behind the scenes stuff from the set of GIANT. We get to see the places that Dean hung out at before he became famous. We even get to see some rare photos of him hanging out with friends and other celebrities. Best of all are some outtakes from EAST OF EDEN and the early screen tests including one with Paul Newman. We even get the now legendary public service spot that Dean shot just days before his death. If you're a fan of Dean then this here is going to be a dream come true simply because of how much footage we get to see. The early television stuff was especially exciting to see as were some of the lesser known shows that he did early in his career.
*** 1/2 (out of 4)
Extremely impressive documentary about the final five years in the life of James Dean. The documentary, narrated by Martin Sheen, is certainly unlike any other you're going to see. For starters, there are countless documentaries, magazine articles and countless other tributes to Dean. I mean, after all there is a reason he's still so highly recognized all these years after his death. If you want to learn about his childhood then there's plenty of information out there. If you want to hear about his public life then that too is out there. This documentary doesn't just focus on his life, career or death but instead it tries to show you a little bit of everything that he was doing. Using film clips, TV episodes, home made movies and countless other items, this documentary starts at the beginning of Dean's career and travels down to his final three movies. I really enjoyed how the documentary tried to cover every aspect of Dean's professional life. We get to see countless clips that would take you hours to track down via the web or other sources and to have all of it within an 88-minutes film is just terrific for fans. We see the work that he did on TV. We get behind the scenes stuff from the set of GIANT. We get to see the places that Dean hung out at before he became famous. We even get to see some rare photos of him hanging out with friends and other celebrities. Best of all are some outtakes from EAST OF EDEN and the early screen tests including one with Paul Newman. We even get the now legendary public service spot that Dean shot just days before his death. If you're a fan of Dean then this here is going to be a dream come true simply because of how much footage we get to see. The early television stuff was especially exciting to see as were some of the lesser known shows that he did early in his career.