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Review: In ‘Life,’ Photographing James Dean, the Rising Star

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life james dean movie review

By Nicolas Rapold

  • Dec. 3, 2015

Anton Corbijn’s “ Life ” is one of those Great Encounters in History dramas, the kind that seeks to recapture (and remythologize) a magic moment. In 1955, a photographer for Magnum, Dennis Stock, shadowed and snapped an ascendant James Dean for Life magazine, a few months before Dean died in a car accident. Mr. Corbijn picturesquely frames the back story to the shoot, but his muffled retelling drifts with Dane DeHaan’s murmurous impersonation of Dean and Robert Pattinson’s almost perversely listless turn as Stock.

Mr. Pattinson, who has been compared to Dean, dials down his glow to nearly nothing to become a wan, frustrated ’50s man hustling for his big artistic break. Much of the film consists of Stock’s trying to corral Dean for shoots in snowy New York and homey Indiana (where Dean was from), while Hollywood’s publicity machine tries to process the wandering would-be star. The film conveys commiseration and some fetishizing on the part of Mr. Corbijn, who made his bones photographing musicians before first filling wide-screen film with the anomie and dramatic blankness of “ Control .”

Mr. DeHaan does have his magic moments as Dean, playing against the rhythms of studio suits (including Ben Kingsley as Jack Warner) and laying his heart bare at a news conference and in a train dining car. But Luke Davies’s dot-connecting screenplay feeds Mr. Pattinson some undeliverable lines, not to mention a sad side story about Stock’s ignored little son.

Then come the re-creations of the photo shoots. Dig, if you will, the pictures, but you don’t need “Life” as a stargazing aid.

“Life” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian) for some sexuality, nudity and language.

Running time: 1 hour 51 minutes

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‘life’: berlin review.

Dane DeHaan plays James Dean while Robert Pattinson is the LIFE magazine photographer who captured the elusive star in a series of iconic 1955 portraits.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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Robert Pattinson and Dane DeHaan in 'Life': Berlin Review

It sounds like the perfect alchemical formula: One ambitious man struggling to break beyond the commercial constraints of his field and prove himself an artist sees an opportunity in a reluctant emerging star, unprepared for the demands of his exploding fame. The elements are fortified when that encounter is pegged to a transitional moment in Eisenhower-era America, as smooth matinee idols were making way for a rougher-edged, more rebellious breed of celebrity. But when a credible connection never sparks in that focal relationship, the whole story feels counterfeit.

That’s the simplified version of why Life doesn’t deliver on its considerable promise. The movie chronicles the back-story behind the 1955 photo spread that brought moody young heartthrob James Dean to the attention of the American public, just seven months before his tragic death at age 24. Dane DeHaan as Dean and Robert Pattinson as Dennis Stock , the Magnum Photos freelancer whose professional horizons opened when he spotted the actor’s raw charisma, too often seem to be in different films, stranded by a script and direction that fail to make a convincing case for the central characters’ symbiosis.

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What makes this even more of a letdown is that it seemed an ideal fit for director Anton Corbijn . His first and best film, Control , about Ian Curtis , the self-destructing frontman of late-’70s English post-punk band Joy Division, was far more successful at piercing the surface of a mythologized cult figure to show the fragile man underneath.

What’s more, Corbijn made his name as a photographer before branching into filmmaking, shooting portraits of some of the biggest names in rock, primarily for influential British music mag NME . When late in this movie, after finally managing to overcome Dean’s resistance and capture his elusive subject, Stock declares his intention to start photographing jazz musicians, it’s logical to assume Corbijn feels a kinship with his protagonist. But there’s no especially insightful appreciation in evidence for the art of photography as the key to unlocking guarded personalities.

That’s not to say that Life doesn’t look sharp. Anastasio Masaro ‘s production design and Gersha Phillips ‘ costumes vividly evoke the mid-century style of the three distinct principal settings — Hollywood, New York and the farming town of Fairmount, Indiana, where Dean spent part of his childhood. And cinematographer Charlotte Bruus Christensen ( The Hunt ) energizes the widescreen canvas with dynamic framing and high-contrast, saturated colors.

But the people that move through these worlds often register as inauthentic. That problem starts with DeHaan’s take on Dean, which seems more studied than inhabited, from the hunched shoulders and drowsy eyes to the sleepy-cool mumble. The performance becomes more effective as he gradually exposes a core of wounded vulnerability. But from Dean’s first appearance, the characterization struggles to avoid the trap of impersonation.

This is one of those true-Hollywood dramas that ushers out an endless parade of famous names in cheesy imitations, many of them bearing only a glancing resemblance to the real thing. They include Nicholas Ray , Natalie Wood , Raymond Massey , Elia Kazan , Julie Harris , Lee Strasberg and Eartha Kitt . The most amusingly cartoonish of these ersatz portrayals has Ben Kingsley chewing it up as a bullying Jack Warner , accustomed to having unconditional ownership of his stars.

The script is by Luke Davies , whose chief previous credit is adapting his novel Cand y into the 2006 Heath Ledger film. He begins the story when Dean is under consideration for the lead in Rebel Without a Cause . Stock meets the brooding loner at a party thrown by director Ray at the Chateau Marmont; he lands an invitation to an advance screening of Dean’s first major film, East of Eden , which Warners is preparing to release.

While James is in a relationship with Italian starlet Pier Angeli ( Alessandra Mastronardi ), whose fame at that time still far eclipsed his, he has few real friends in L.A., which makes him drawn to Dennis. An early scene has a faint homoerotic frisson as James gives him an appraising look and says, “You wanna go for a ride on my ‘sickle’?” But that’s either unintended or under-explored.

Despite James still being a relatively unknown commodity, Dennis manages to persuade his Magnum picture editor John Morris ( Joel Edgerton , in a nothing role) to pitch a next-big-thing spread on the actor to LIFE to coincide with the East of Eden premiere. But James gets cagey about participation as he runs afoul of the studio publicity machine and Warner uses threats to try to rein him in.

Meanwhile, Dennis is under pressure from his ex-wife ( Stella Schnabel ) to come back to New York and be a father to their seven-year-old son ( Jack Fulton ). He has seized on the Dean assignment as his first real shot at serious work, and seems determined that this undisciplined, awkward young actor can be positioned as the symbol of an exciting new movement.

Composer Owen Pallett channels that spirit of cultural ferment in a score of beatnik-flavored jazz, with lots of lazy drums and smoky horns, a musical device used to similar effect in another DeHaan film set a decade earlier, Kill Your Darlings .

While Pattinson has endured a lot of gratuitous bashing post- Twilight , he gives arguably the most fully rounded performance here, even if the character is inconsistently drawn. The photographer’s challenges seem as much due to his own insecurities as to the subject’s flakiness. But the conflict concerning whether James will or won’t deliver for Dennis’ camera never packs much urgency.

Nor does the relationship between them grow in any satisfying way. For much of the film they seem to move on parallel rather than interlocking tracks, and when James opens up during the train trip to Indiana about the painful loss of his mother as a child, it registers as a monologue, not a genuine response to a deepening friendship. DeHaan is solid in this scene and later, when James lets down his defenses and reveals his solitude. And yet the film mostly grasps for unearned emotions.

The photos, when they are finally recreated, are anticlimactic. There’s a mild thrill of pop-cultural significance in watching while a discouraged Stock suddenly realizes something magical is happening as Dean strolls through Times Square smoking a cigarette, with his hands thrust in his overcoat pockets and his collar turned up against the rain in what would become one of the defining images of the actor.

Others, like the classic barbershop portrait, occur without any real sense of momentousness. And the friction that surfaces between the two men during their trip to Indiana is too thin to generate much poignancy when the farm shots are being taken. One absolute gem that’s represented only in the end credits is the famous picture of Dean resting a hand on a massive hog, leaving Kingsley unchallenged as this dramatically wan movie’s prize ham.

Production companies: See-Saw Films, First Generation Films, Barry Films

Cast: Robert Pattinson, Dane DeHaan, Joel Edgerton, Alessandra Mastronardi, Stella Schnabel, Ben Kingsley

Director: Anton Corbijn

Screenwriter: Luke Davies

Producers: Iain Canning, Emile Sherman, Christina Piovesan, Benito Mueller, Wolfgang Mueller

Executive producers: Tessa Ross, Mark Slone, Michel Merkt, Mark Roberts, Sheldon Rabinowitz, Ross Jacobson

Director of photography: Charlotte Bruus Christensen

Production designer: Anastasia Masaro

Costume designer: Gersha Phillips

Music: Owen Pallett

Editor: Nick Fenton

Casting: Laura Rosenthal, John Buchan, Jason Knight

Sales: FilmNation Entertainment

No rating, 110 minutes.

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Berlin Film Review: ‘Life’

Dane DeHaan is a magnetic James Dean in Anton Corbijn's elegant study of the complex bond between star and shutterbug.

By Guy Lodge

Film Critic

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'Life' Review: Dane DeHaan Makes a Fine James Dean

Makeup and mimicry can only take an actor so far when tasked with playing one of the most enduring stars in the cinematic firmament: More crucial is that he have a certain intangible star quality of his own. Such is the success of Dane DeHaan ‘s magnetic take on James Dean in “ Life ,” Anton Corbijn ‘s engaging, elegiac portrait of a legend in the making. More than a standard celebrity bio, however, the pic is a loving valentine from photographer-turned-helmer Corbijn to his name-making profession, with Robert Pattinson in a sly turn as Dennis Stock, the shutterbug who landed Dean a now-classic Life magazine spread. It’s the peculiarly moving, even subtly queer friendship between the two men that distinguishes “Life” from standard inside-Hollywood fare, while gorgeous production values and ace star turns make it a thoroughly marketable arthouse prospect. 

If any current filmmaker is qualified to reflect on the intimate complexities of capturing and crafting star quality through the aperture of a camera lens, it’s the Dutch-born Corbijn — who effectively animated his signature rock-photography aesthetic to track the construction and collapse of an icon in his first stab at showbiz biography, 2007’s Ian Curtis study “Control.” Needless to say, focusing as it does on an industry that prizes heightened glamor over gut-spilling authenticity, “Life” is a sleeker effort all around in tone and texture — shot by gifted Danish d.p. Charlotte Bruus Christensen (“The Hunt”) in minty vintage hues, each frame lit as if it would be cashmere to the touch. Four features into his directorial career, with the smeary autumnal mood of last year’s “A Most Wanted Man” still fresh in the memory, Corbijn is proving a more versatile stylist than his striking debut might have suggested.

Still, it’s not surprising that Dean should interest the helmer as a subject. In the mid-1950s, the high-haired, ill-fated Indiana native was arguably the first rock star of the American film industry, his brief screen career demonstrating the studio system’s attempt to engage with the decade’s reinvention of adolescence — an investment he repaid with his appropriately impetuous refusal to behave like a star under contract. “I just want to do good acting … I’ll go where that takes me,” he replies to a glib journalist’s question prior to the premiere of his star-making role in Elia Kazan’s “East of Eden,” though he’s already encountering the limits of his leash.

Via a brisk, literate script by Australian writer Luke Davies (best known for the 2006 addiction drama “Candy”), “Life” identifies the key contradiction in Dean’s star persona: A shy, genuinely gifted nonconformist, he was eventually (and posthumously) styled, marketed and managed to appear as untamed and undoctored an individual as possible. Studio chief Jack Warner, lavishly played with a kind of twinkling malice by Ben Kingsley , is initially skeptical: “I’m not sure we should emphasize the rebel in you, Jimmy,” he swipes, all but inviting Dean to place the emphasis himself.

The 26-year-old Stock is similarly at the outset of a promising (and, happily, longer-lived) career in his craft when he encounters Dean at a Nicholas Ray-hosted Chateau Marmont shindig. (Ray glides by with Natalie Wood; aficionados of the era will have a field day with the pic’s plethora of cannily cast cameos in this vein.) The two young men strike up a tentative rapport based, it appears, on a blend of mutual suspicion and attraction.

Stock professes to be intrigued by Dean’s “awkwardness” and “purity.” Dean, for his part, is fascinated by the cameraman’s fascination — as if he might catch a clue to his own identity reflected in the lens — and agrees to be trailed for a photo essay. As Stock and Dean shuffle their way through the Beat bars of New York City and, later, the clapboard heartland of the actor’s home state, the pictures that would later grace a million dorm-room walls emerge with jazzy nonchalance on the part of both artist and model. With invaluable assists from Christensen and production designer Anastasia Masaro, Corbijn delights in slowly piecing together isolated elements from landmark shots within his own frame, guarding his angles until the whole iconic composition shimmers into view.

DeHaan and Pattinson enact this anti-romance beautifully, each man quizzically eyeing the other for leads and clues, while coyly retreating from scrutiny. Pattinson, adding to his post-“Twilight” gallery of sharp-cut screw-ups, brings intriguing layers of childish dysfunction to a character who is only ostensibly the straight man in the partnership. DeHaan, meanwhile, plays Dean as the more openly flirtatious of the two, a flashier generational companion to his louchely inspired Lucien Carr in 2013’s “Kill Your Darlings.”

While he’s far from the first to suggest a distinct fluidity to the star’s sexuality, DeHaan’s is nonetheless a witty, inventive interpretation, exaggerating Dean’s breathy vocal mannerisms and relaxed body language to conjure an aura of studied, open-to-all sensuality. (Warner, at least, candidly picks up the signals, issuing a deadpan threat of sodomy if Dean dares veer from the studio playbook.) Though he’s considerably aided by immaculate costuming and hairstyling, DeHaan doesn’t look much like his subject; his performance glides on its own brand of quicksilver intensity. A riveting sustained monologue on a parent’s passing, delivered by DeHaan with soft, still focus in a train dining car, is a scene Dean might have delivered himself with equivalent concentration, if a different set of inflections.

Below the line, “Life” — not the most evocative title, though a fitting one for a film concerned with both physical and celluloid mortality — is composed and designed with lustrous attention to detail, yet avoids the blandly handsome veneer of many a nostalgic industry picture. Even the covetable city cars, viewed carefully, have surface dents and grazes, while Christensen’s perceptive camera occasionally picks up a smudge on the lens of Dean’s familiar tortoiseshell glasses — in a film wistfully dedicated to ways of seeing, no obstruction to our view goes amiss.

Reviewed at Berlin Film Festival (Berlinale Special), Feb. 7, 2015. Running time: 111 MIN.

  • Production: (Canada-Germany-Australia) A Telefilm Canada, Film4, Screen Australia, Filmfoerderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein presentation of a See-Saw Films, First Generation Films, Barry Films production in association with FilmNation Entertainment, Corner Piece Capital, Entertainment One, the Harold Greenberg Fund, Cross City Sales. (International sales: FilmNation Entertainment, New York.) Produced by Iain Canning, Emile Sherman, Christina Piovesan, Benito Mueller, Wolfgang Mueller. Executive producers, Tessa Ross, Mark Slone, Michel Merkt, Mark Roberts, Sheldon Rabinowitz, Ross Jacobson. Co-executive producers, Sasha Burrows, Alice Clough, Alex Lalonde.
  • Crew: Directed by Anton Corbijn. Screenplay, Luke Davies. Camera (color, widescreen), Charlotte Bruus Christensen; editor, Nick Fenton; music, Owen Pallett; music supervisor, Ian Neil; production designer, Anastasia Masaro; art director, Kim Zaharko; set decorator, Patricia Cuccia; costume designer, Gersha Phillips; sound, John Thompson; supervising sound editor, Noemi Hampel; re-recording mixer, Martin Steyer; visual effects supervisor, James Rogers, visual effects, Iloura; stunt coordinator, Jamie Jones; line producer, Steve Wakefield; associate producer, Katherine Bridle; assistant director, Jack Boem; casting, Laura Rosenthal.
  • With: Robert Pattinson, Dane DeHaan, Joel Edgerton, Ben Kingsley, Alessandra Mastronardi, Stella Schnabel, Kristian Bruun; Peter Lucas, John Blackwood, Ron White, Kasey Lea, Jack Fulton, Kristen Hager, Jessica Rose, Philip Maurice Hayes, Kelly McCreary, Caitlin Stewart. (English dialogue)

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Common sense media reviewers.

life james dean movie review

Flat James Dean biopic has swearing, some nudity.

Life Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Persistence can pay off.

Young James Dean is portrayed as earnest and reluc

A studio executive makes casual threats to a young

A brief sex scene shows a drunken couple having se

Occasional swearing includes "s--t," "f--k," and "

Frequent smoking throughout (accurate for the era)

Parents need to know that Life takes a look at the early career of actor James Dean (Dane DeHaan) and his relationship with Dennis Stock (Robert Pattinson), a photographer for Life magazine who captured some of the most iconic images of the budding star. Expect plenty of smoking, as was common during…

Positive Messages

Positive role models.

Young James Dean is portrayed as earnest and reluctant to embrace the life of a soon-to-be star. He wants little to do with the studio apparatus, preferring instead to spend time in the small town where he grew up, where his life seems more wholesome. Dennis is extremely persistent in his mission to convince Dean to pose for a series of photographs. He finally gets what he wants after winning over the budding star.

Violence & Scariness

A studio executive makes casual threats to a young actor, warning him to toe the company line or face unpleasant consequences.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

A brief sex scene shows a drunken couple having sex in a bar bathroom; thrusting shown, but no body parts are visible. In another scene, two lovers relax in bed, nude; the woman's breasts are visible.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Occasional swearing includes "s--t," "f--k," and "screw."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Frequent smoking throughout (accurate for the era). Drinking at parties and bars; in one scene, some characters get quite drunk. One sequence shows people popping uppers.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Life takes a look at the early career of actor James Dean ( Dane DeHaan ) and his relationship with Dennis Stock ( Robert Pattinson ), a photographer for Life magazine who captured some of the most iconic images of the budding star. Expect plenty of smoking, as was common during the 1950s, and a few scenes show people drinking heavily and popping pills. There's some moderate swearing (including "s--t" and "f--k"), a brief sex scene in a bar bathroom (no nudity), and one longer scene of a couple in bed that shows a woman's breasts. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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life james dean movie review

Community Reviews

  • Parents say (2)

Based on 2 parent reviews

LIFE is worth seeing, it's a very good film

What's the story.

In early 1955, James Dean ( Dane DeHaan ) was about to break out. His first big film, East of Eden , was complete but hadn't been released, and he was about to be cast in Rebel Without a Cause . He wasn't quite a star, but Dennis Stock ( Robert Pattinson ), a photographer for Life magazine, saw something in him. Over the course of a few weeks, even accompanying Dean to his small Indiana hometown, Stock persuaded the actor to pose for a series of photos that have since become some of most iconic images of the charismatic young celebrity-to-be.

Is It Any Good?

The biggest issue with LIFE is DeHaan's portrayal of Dean -- and that's a big issue in a James Dean biopic. DeHaan plays the iconic actor as all swagger and little depth, more like his defiant character in Rebel Without a Cause than his own person; it's an affected performance that doesn't reveal the charisma that propelled the young actor to stardom. Pattinson's Stock seems more real, and we feel his frustration as he juggles deadlines, family, and an uncooperative subject as he tries to get the shots he needs.

While Life is told through the lens of Stock's experience, the story is all about Dean, and without a compelling James Dean, there's not much reason to watch. People who don't know much about his off-screen life probably won't feel like they've learned much about him from the big-screen Life .

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about James Dean. Do you think Life captures the young actor's charisma? Can you tell why he was so popular?

How does Life 's take on James Dean compare to the way stars are often shown in other biopics? Is he portrayed as a role model ?

What role did the media play in James Dean's life? In his status as a star/icon? How does that compare to stars' relationship with the media today?

Movie Details

  • In theaters : December 4, 2015
  • On DVD or streaming : March 1, 2016
  • Cast : Robert Pattinson , Dane DeHaan , Joel Edgerton
  • Director : Anton Corbijn
  • Studio : Cinedigm
  • Genre : Drama
  • Run time : 111 minutes
  • MPAA rating : R
  • MPAA explanation : some sexuality/nudity and language
  • Last updated : June 19, 2023

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Robert Pattinson (Dennis Stock) Dane DeHaan (James Dean) Peter Lucas (Nicholas Ray) Lauren Gallagher (Natalie Wood) Kendal Rae (Messy Actress) Drew Leger (Boyfriend) Alessandra Mastronardi (Pier Angeli) John Blackwood (Raymond Massey) Jason Blicker (Journalist) Emily Hurson (Publicity Trooper) Kristian Bruun (Roger) Joel Edgerton (John Morris) Emma Pedersen (John Morris' Secretary) Stella Schnabel (Norma) Allison Brennan (Jack Warner's Assistant) Ben Kingsley (Jack Warner) Philip Maurice Hayes (Marshall (ASIB)) David Ross Paterson (Premiere Driver)

Anton Corbijn

A photographer for LIFE Magazine is assigned to shoot pictures of James Dean.

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Dane DeHaan as James Dean and Robert Pattinson as Dennis Stock in Life, directed by Anton Corbijn

Berlin 2015: Life review – waxworky piece of American icon worship

There is something worryingly and ironically lifeless about this new film from Anton Corbijn , presented at a special gala screening at Berlin.

It’s a laborious, lugubrious movie maintained at a somnolent cool-jazz tempo – a waxworky piece of American icon worship featuring a sympathetic but mannered performance from Dane DeHaan impersonating James Dean , whose supposed legendary moodiness the film seems to want to imitate in every drowsy particular. Scene follows scene at a sleepwalking pace. And the complexity of Dean’s sexual identity is something the movie leaves untouched, and keeps its tense hints at the subject largely in a heavy closet of its own making.

It’s ironic, chiefly because this comes from Corbijn, the photographer-turned-film-maker with a superb visual sense who created such exciting and demanding movies as Control (2007) about the life of Ian Curtis, and his Le Carré adaptation, A Most Wanted Man (2014). This is a movie about photographs and photography, a subject about which Corbijn knows perhaps more than any movie director working. But the subject arguably made him self-conscious. At any rate, the film has the inert stasis of a photo spread.

Life is about the creation of the great magazine pictures in 1955 that showed Dean slouching through New York’s snowy, freezing Times Square and exuberantly at home on his family’s Indiana farm – the defiantly non-LA images, which, after his death, did as much as anything to reinforce Dean’s iconic status and his reputation for actorly seriousness. And so the movie’s title alludes to the great magazine while burdening itself with unfulfilled metaphorical promise.

Opposite DeHaan is Robert Pattinson playing photographer Dennis Stock, whose persistence and determination got these great shots. Sadly, Pattinson’s natural style and charisma is suppressed, perhaps because Dean is supposed to be the charismatic one, but we are given little or nothing to show Stock’s watchful, non-starry ordinariness. It’s a frankly flat and unengaged performance from Pattinson, and there is no real tension or chemistry between the two men. I would like to have seen Pattinson being his own saturnine power to the role of Dean – I even found myself wondering if DeHaan and Pattinson could not somehow change and change about in the course of the film, like Jonny Lee Miller and Benedict Cumberbatch in Danny Boyle’s famous stage production of Frankenstein.

The action runs from Dean’s sensational appearance in East of Eden to his being cast in Rebel Without a Cause – a lull in which the hot young actor is on the verge of the big time, secretly scared by imminent success, and taking refuge in too-cool-for-school mannerisms. Stock is the ambitious young photographer, sick of dumb red-carpet pap shots and publicity stills. He can see what makes Dean special, and starts the long process of selling Life magazine on the idea of an in-depth spread, while trying to make enough cash for his semi-estranged wife and infant son.

It’s a story crowded with incident and detail. Ben Kingsley contributes a refreshingly pungent cameo as brutal studio chief Jack Warner, who is infuriated by Dean’s refusal to play the publicity game: “If you’re not a good boy, I will fuck you till it hurts.” But he has a shrewd sense of what a hot property this tricky young customer is. As for Stock, he is out of his depth with Dean and all these hard-partying New York actors and bohemians, and his unhappy experiences with drugs leads to a massive hangover and a humiliating experience with his bewildered son.

But he still seems like a cipher. At one stage, Dean tells his uncle that Stock is a typical New Yorker: “prickly, pushy and opinionated”. Really? He mostly seems like a quiet polite guy with not much to say for himself. As for Dean, DeHaan’s performance has confidence and self-possession, and he has a real charisma of his own. But he gives us little or nothing of what might lie behind these licensed and approved images. There are some pleasing touches, but this film is a frustrating experience.

  • Anton Corbijn
  • Robert Pattinson
  • Berlin film festival
  • Berlin film festival 2015

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Life (2015) Review

Life (2015) Director:  Anton Corbijn Cast:  Robert Pattinson, Dane Dehaan, Ben Kingsley, Joel Edgerton. Plot:  Life is a biopic about James Dean’s turbulent and short life and it is centres mostly on his relationship with Life photographer Dennis Stock.

I had been waiting for this film for such a long time and when I finally had the chance to watch it I was very pleased with the result – if you’re familiar with James Dean’s acting skills and life you probably won’t be disappointed by this film. The director Anton Corbijn and the cinematographer Charlotte Bruus Christensen – who also worked with Danish director Thomas Vintenberg for  Far From the Madding Crowd (2015)   and  Hunky Dory (2011)   –  both did an excellent job in recreating the places in which Dean lived and loved the most.

The story starts with an already famous James Dean (Dane Dehaan) who has just finished shooting East Of Eden (1955) and whose life is soon going to change as Jack Warner (Ben Kingsley) and his manager Roger (Kristian Bruun) try to schedule his life and routine to make him a film star for the Hollywood cinema industry. In the midst of all these events we meet young photographer Dennis Stock (Robert Pattinson) who works at the Magnum Photos Agency and, foreseeing his rough talent, wishes to make a photoshoot of him for Life magazine. Eventually, we see James Dean get the leading role in Rebel Without a Cause (1955).

James and Dennis seem to start off on the wrong foot but they get to know each other better over time and James even shares with Dennis some pivotal and personal events from his past. On this note I’d suggest that you pay much attention to the train trip the two of them make to get to Indiana as it was a very touching sequence.

I was especially touched by Dane Dehaan’s performance as the iconic figure. Having heard and seen the real James Dean speak and act, Dehaan’s way of portraying him was very impressive –  his accent, moves, gestures, were familiar courtesy of their similarity to the real man. I was already knowledgeable of Dehaan’s acting skills so I wasn’t surprised by his excellent performance, and it was clear that he put in a lot of work to seem as similar to James Dean as possible in this particular movie. I was also happily surprised by Robert Pattinson’s acting as, I must be honest, I’m not really a fan of his acting career and I’ve never thought of him being quite as talented as others would suggest. Although, most of the time, it seemed as if it was all Dane Dehaan’s work and it felt like so often he might as well have been talking to himself, Robert Pattinson’s performance in this film was the best of his career, for sure.

The movie did an excellent job of presenting the idea that James Dean was an absent figure lost in his own world and thoughts, who didn’t care much about social conventions and even less about Hollywood. He didn’t want to be a star, he just enjoyed acting and was annoyed by the nosy press and all of the negative results of fame that surrounded him. I think his relationship with his mother was the most important thing in his life and when he lost her, he lost a piece of himself too and it was never to be found again in anything or anyone. That’s what I felt by Dehaan’s portrayal of him – Dean was always searching for a paternal figure he never had in his life and in order to fill the void he played all these troubled young rebels that actually were very similar to his real character. I was also pleased to see at the end of the film the real pictures taken by Dennis Stock, which made him famous and fostered his career later on. Adding this precise detail made it all seem even more true to life.

I felt sympathy for James because he seemed so lonely, often wishing to go home and find the peace he was always searching for throughout his brief but iconic life. The conclusion of the movie illustrated this excellently, with James quoting Indiana poet James Whitcomb Riley at the end. It was a heartbreaking for me and surely a must-see for any fan of James Dean or those interested in his work or iconic stature.

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Life Review - Dane DeHaan INFECTS The Screen As James Dean

And the cameraman is fighting to keep up.

life james dean movie review

Film Editor (2014-2016). Loves The Usual Suspects. Hates Transformers 2. Everything else lies somewhere in the middle. Once met the Chuckle Brothers.

James Dean, before he was a ‘Rebel’

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On first glance, the casting of “Life,” the new film from director Anton Corbijn, might seem odd. After all, how do you make a movie about Dennis Stock, the photographer who shot James Dean for Life magazine shortly before he became an enormous superstar, and then cast Robert Pattinson as any character other than Dean himself?

When: Opens Friday

Where: Digital Gym Cinema

Running time: 1 hour,

Pattinson, after all, has the sleepy lids of Dean, and his own languid acting style. But in the end, it actually makes a great deal of sense. Sure, Corbijn, who got his start shooting photographs for bands like U2 and Depeche Mode, has cast the more classically handsome actor as, you guessed it, the photographer, but he’s made a wise choice in tapping Dane DeHaan as the legendary star. DeHaan has an unusual look, but he greatly humanizes Dean, playing him as a reluctant celebrity who is on the verge of losing control of who he is in the face of fame.

The movie begins shortly before the release of “East of Eden,” the 1955 Elia Kazan film that catapulted Dean to stardom and put him in the running to play Jim Stark, the lead in Nicholas Ray’s “Rebel Without a Cause.” Stock is shooting party photos in Los Angeles when he meets Dean, having no idea that the cool cat who is chatting him up is about to be the Next Big Thing, but when he realizes they have some rapport, he pitches a photo essay to Life.

For Dennis, the stakes are high. He’s a struggling photographer with an ex-wife and a son back in New York. This is the gig that could make his career, but getting Dean on board isn’t so simple. The actor is seeing his freedom slip away, and his life starting to be controlled by studio moguls like Jack Warner (an oily Ben Kingsley), and he’s starting to doubt whether fame is really what he wants. He leads Dennis on, to a degree, and eventually takes him back to the Indiana farm where he grew up, allowing Dennis to see a side of Dean no one else ever would.

It really is the work of Pattinson, and even more so DeHaan, that makes “Life” a success. The title has the obvious double meaning — both characters learn some lessons before the credits roll. But it’s strong, stylish work, exactly what you hope to get from Corbijn. It’s another tale of old Hollywood, not unlike this year’s “Trumbo,” but in many ways it has more in common with “The End of the Tour,” the film that stars Jason Segel as David Foster Wallace.

Certainly, it was a risky move casting DeHaan as Dean, but it’s one that pays off nicely, as he comes across as a real, sensitive individual, trying hard to make sense of a confusing set of circumstances at a very young age. DeHaan, after all, is only 29, but Dean was only 24 when he died, just months after crossing paths with Stock.

Wright writes about movies for The San Diego Union-Tribune. Email him at [email protected].

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Geek Review: Life (2015 film)

life james dean movie review

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“James who?”

If you were like me and your only association with James Dean would be his most famous movie, Rebel Without a Cause,  you are in a pretty good place if you’re planning to catch Life . It is amazing how Dean as a star, shone so bright and fizzled out twice as fast. Yet, his name still lingers till this day.

In Life,  we are treated with a very light touch biographical drama which encompasses the interactions between Photographer Dennis Stock (Robert Pattinson) and James Dean (Dane DeHaan). While the 1950s might have looked different, the motivations behind each character are still very much relatable even in the present.

life james dean movie review

Depending on which stage in your life you might be at, Stock and Dean illustrate to us that sometimes, even the greatest of individuals go through personal trials and tribulations invisible to the public eye. If the phrase “Be Kind; Everyone You Meet is Fighting a Hard Battle” rings a bell, this movie exemplifies that. We see Dean struggling for recognition in the world of show business and having to please Jack Warner (Ben Kingsley), bigwig of Warner Brothers, by having to heed the studio’s wishes. On the flip side, we see Stock working his way up in the media business and by oft chance meets James Dean whom he correctly identifies as a star in the making.

Two individuals, climbing their way to the top and seeking to make their mark in the world. Does it sound remotely familiar to anyone? I’m sure that at some point or another in our lives, we do often stop and wonder if the daily grind is really worth it and at what cost.

life james dean movie review

Throughout the film, we see how Dean and Stock struggle with each other by testing the power balance of their relationship. Each individual has much to gain from the other, but yet they both hold back. The one who places too much on the table folds and we see this invisible tug-of-war going on until both of them realize that there really isn’t much to lose.

For most of the film, Dean does play the rebel pretty well but it’s just his movie star personality that he uses as a shield against individuals like his agent and, to an extent, Stock as they all just want something out of Dean. While Stock and Dean might be on opposite sides of the same coin, Stocks’ motivations and backstory in the movie does not come through in the writing and it’s harder to feel any sympathy for the personality.

While it really seems like a trope in which two individuals seemingly need to go on a journey to better understand each other, we do really see James Dean’s real character shine through as he makes his way home to the family farm together with Dennis Stock.

It is at home and in Dean’s moment of vulnerability, we see Stock capturing every single moment with his camera and with it is where Stock gets his money shot. Cliche as it sounds, Robert Pattinson is unable to shake his Twilight vibe and he comes across almost like a voyeuristic vampire, intent on cataloging Dean’s soul.

The things that movie stars and celebrity photographers have to do just to get ahead of the game, they aren’t so different from you and me. I guess that’s just life for you.

GEEK REVIEW SCORE

Hardly a cranial journey, Life is a straightforward light-touch movie. You won’t need to be a fan of James Dean to enjoy it but it will leave your inspired for your journey in life ahead.

  • Story - 7/10 7/10
  • Direction - 6.5/10 6.5/10
  • Characterisation - 7/10 7/10
  • Geek Satisfaction - 5/10 5/10

User Review

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Gerald currently straddles between his love of video games and board gaming. There’s nothing that interests him more than trying out the newest and fanciest gadget in town as well. He dreams of publishing a board game sometime in the future!

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My Life With James Dean – Movie Review: A Wonderfully Fun French Film!

My life with james dean focuses on a young director named gerard champreux as he is invited to present his film in normandy. what follows is a hilarious turn of events as gerard meets the locals and finds the inspiration for his next project..

Breaking Glass Pictures provided me with a screener of My Life with James Dean for review. The opinions are my own. 

I adore  My Life with James Dean . Directed by Dominique Choisy, this French film has definitely earned a place on the list of my favorite queer movies. The entire feature has a whimsical charm to it which had me smiling throughout the 1-hour and 43-minute runtime (excluding the credits). It is silly but so good! I loved every second of it!

We are introduced to Geraud Champreux (Johnny Rasse) as he reaches Normandy to present his film. Things don’t start well for the director as he loses his cell phone and realizes that the locals aren’t interested in his queer piece titled My Life with James Dean because they prefer American action films and comedies.

Of course, the first screening doesn’t go well and Geraud finds himself drinking his disappointment away. He is also trying to figure out his relationship with his on again/off again boyfriend who is the star of his film (and I think is married to a woman).

A very young man named Balthazar (Mickael Pelissier) falls in love with Geraud and his movie and comes to the rescue by lying about the tickets sold. From there we follow Geraud, Balthazar, and an entire ensemble of weirdly pleasant characters on Geraud’s film tour.

Each cast member has their own issues to deal with. Sylvia van den Rood (Nathalie Richard), who invited Geraud to Normandy, is trying to win her girlfriend back. Gladys (Juliette Damiens) wants more in her life than just being a hotel receptionist. Balthazar is yet to come out to his parents and wants Geraud to fall in love with him. An elderly woman has a reason to watch every screening of Geraud’s film. There’s also a mysterious man Geraud keeps seeing.

Cinephiles are sure to notice homages to the history of cinema scattered throughout this movie. I personally loved the scenes where certain characters secretly followed other characters down the street. It was a wonderful homage to the silent days of cinema.

My Life with James Dean  is a very vibrant film to watch as it showcases some beautiful scenery. There is so much color everywhere!

There’s also a sense of drama and sadness revolving the cast, but the comedic undertones make for an enjoyable viewing experience. It does get silly during many moments, but it all works to strengthen the overall charm.

Speaking of charm, Johnny Rasse’s Geraud kind of looks like a weird mix of a younger version of Robert Downy Jr. and Matthew Goode. Geraud has a fish-out-of-water aspect to his character which makes him all the more adorable.

Released today, My Life with James Dean is available on DVD and VOD ( iTunes , Amazon ) from Breaking Glass Pictures . You should definitely check it out!

Feel free to share your thoughts about My Life with James Dean with us.

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My Life With James Dean

2017, Comedy/Lgbtq+, 1h 48m

Where to watch My Life With James Dean

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My life with james dean   photos.

Géraud goes to a French seaside town to screen his new experimental film, but the only person who wants to see it is the underage projectionist who develops a crush on handsome Géraud.

Genre: Comedy, Lgbtq+

Original Language: French (France)

Director: Dominique Choisy

Producer: François Drouot , Marie Sonne-Jensen

Writer: Dominique Choisy

Release Date (Streaming): Aug 30, 2018

Runtime: 1h 48m

Cast & Crew

Johnny Rasse

Géraud Champreux

Mickaël Pelissier

Nathalie Richard

Sylvia van den Rood

Juliette Damiens

Marie Vernalde

Bertrand Belin

Julien Graux

Sophie Matel

Tancredi Volpert

Yannick Bequelin

Tajamul Faqiri-Choisy

Eric Goulouzelle

Dominique Choisy

Screenwriter

François Drouot

Marie Sonne-Jensen

Laurent Coltelloni

Cinematographer

Film Editing

Isabelle Debraye

Céline Mombert

Costume Design

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You’ve probably seen the viral video. An elderly British man named Nicholas Winton sits in the front row of a television studio watching a silly chat show called, “That’s Life.” The host explains to the viewers that more than 40 years earlier, just before World War II, as the Nazis were invading Czechoslovakia, Winton arranged for the rescue of hundreds of children from Prague. The story had never been publicly told and none of the children knew who had arranged their transportation and found them foster homes in the UK. The host then revealed that the woman sitting next to Winton was one of those children. And in a second “That’s Life” broadcast, where Winton expected to meet two more of the now-grown children, it turned out that every member of the studio audience was one of those he had rescued.

That extraordinary story is now the subject of a less-than-extraordinary film that is nevertheless heartwarming, its theme of the difference a single person can make reflected in the title, “One Life.” Winton is played in the 1980s by Anthony Hopkins and in the flashbacks to the late 1930s by Johnny Flynn . 

Winton was born two years after his German parents immigrated to the UK in 1907. At that time their name was Wertheim, Anglicized to Winton as the prospect of a second world war made the family want to be seen as fully British as they felt. They had converted from Judaism and Winton was baptized, though, as he explains to a Czech rabbi suspicious of his reasons for requesting the names of the displaced children, he considers himself an agnostic and, surprisingly for someone working as a stockbroker, a socialist.

“Everyone in Prague is trying to get out,” Winton’s mother (Helena Bonham Carter) says dryly. “My son is trying to get in.” Germany had “annexed” the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia and only the European politicians thought he was going to stop there. Refugees were living in the direst conditions in Prague. The Kindertransport trains rescuing refugee children were only allowed from Germany and Austria, not Czechoslovakia.

A few exhausted British citizens in Prague were trying to help, but their priority was activists who would be the first to be arrested if the Nazis arrived. Winton’s priority was the children. There were thousands of children and innumerable obstacles. Locals and refugees were not willing to share their information for fear the Nazis would get them, by force or betrayal. There was a lot of bureaucratic red tape in the UK and the countries the children would have to go through and the need for £50 (about $10,000 today) and a willing foster home for each of them before they would be allowed into the country. And there was no time. With the help of his very persuasive mother, some friends in the UK and Prague, and endless hours of pasting the children’s photos on the visas, they were able to bring eight trains filled with more than 600 children to England. The ninth train, scheduled to leave the day the war was declared, was stopped by the Nazis. 

As the older Winton tries, at his wife’s urging, to go through the towering piles of paper in his home office, he thinks back on his life. He is overcome with the thoughts of the children he could not save. He shyly brings his scrapbook of the rescue operation to the local newspaper, but the editor says there is no local angle. And then he brings it to Betsy Maxwell ( Marthe Keller ), the French wife of media mogul, financier, Czech refugee, and perpetrator of a massive fraud Robert Maxwell (they were also the parents of Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, but that would be another movie). Finally there is someone who recognizes its importance.

The flashback scenes are not as compelling as they try to be. The Hopkins scenes are more engaging, not just because we look forward to the re-enactment of the television reveal, but because the film is sharper at addressing the existential issues of purpose and meaning than it is in showing us the difficulties in rescuing the children. The metaphor of his pool (immersing, draining as it is covered with fallen leaves, filling it again) is unnecessarily heavy-handed. When Winton sees the children he saved, grown up and apparently flourishing, it helps him make sense of his life and tells us everything we need.

Nell Minow

Nell Minow is the Contributing Editor at RogerEbert.com.

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One Life movie poster

One Life (2024)

109 minutes

Anthony Hopkins as Nicholas Winton

Johnny Flynn as Nicholas Winton (young)

Helena Bonham-Carter as Babi Winton

Jonathan Pryce as Martin Blake

Romola Garai as Doreen Warriner

Alex Sharp as Trevor

Lena Olin as Grete Winton

Samantha Spiro as Esther Rantzen

  • James Hawes
  • Lucinda Coxon

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Review: In ‘One Life,’ a Holocaust hero’s story gets the modest treatment he would have preferred

A man looks over an old scrapbook.

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The cinematic image of children boarding trains in World War II is, typically, a traumatic one. But in “One Life,” directed by James Hawes, it is wildly, blindly hopeful, as children board trains in Prague, bound for England, escaping dire conditions in refugee camps and the encroaching Nazi occupation, seemingly steps away.

“One Life” is the true story of Nicholas “Nicky” Winton , a British stockbroker and humanitarian who, in 1939, helped to arrange the escape of 669 children from Czechoslovakia. Written by Lucinda Coxon and Nick Drake, the film is based on a book by Winton’s daughter, Barbara Winton, “If It’s Not Impossible … the Life of Sir Nicholas Winton.” The film marks the feature directorial debut of Hawes, who also did the first season of the Apple TV+ spy series “Slow Horses.”

“One Life” weaves together two periods in Winton’s life, 50 years apart. Anthony Hopkins plays Winton in 1987, enjoying a life of peaceful retirement with his wife, Grete (Lena Olin). At the behest of Grete, while cleaning out his office, he uncovers his old scrapbook containing the records and remnants of his pre-war endeavors helping refugee children. His efforts have gone unrecognized in the years since, the children scattered to foster families across Britain, but he remains haunted by their faces, snapped in photographs that he pores over with a magnifying glass.

Johnny Flynn plays Winton five decades earlier, a stern and quiet man, the son of German Jewish immigrants who converted to Christianity and changed their last name in order to assimilate in England. Concerned with reports from occupied Sudetenland, Winton takes a leave from his banking job and meets a friend in Prague in order to assist with the refugee efforts. He immediately becomes taken with the cause of evacuating as many children as he can to England.

A man in a trench coat walks past a train.

The comparison to “Schindler’s List” is apt — Winton has colloquially been known as “the British Schindler” — and the film will feel familiar, if not formulaic, because we have seen films like this about World War II and the Holocaust. Hawes utilizes that iconography without exploiting or sensationalizing the material; the film is emotionally restrained in a way that is almost frustrating at times but ultimately reflects the character of Winton’s quiet, self-effacing personality.

As Hopkins’ Winton puzzles over what to do with his scrapbook, it’s the other people in his life, including his old friend Martin (Jonathan Pryce) and others like Elizabeth “Betty” Maxwell (Marthe Keller) — a Holocaust researcher and the wife of the infamous media magnate Robert Maxwell — who emphasize what an important humanitarian achievement he spearheaded. In fact, it’s not until Winton appears on a surprising 1988 episode of the British chat show “That’s Life!” that he’s able to comprehend the sheer human impact of his efforts and the emotion begins to seep through.

There is a subdued, unshowy but profound beauty to Hawes’ work. The pre-war timeline is the kind of sturdy World War II-era filmmaking that we have come to expect, rendered with a comforting authenticity. As audience members, we do crave a bit more naked emotion or even personal motivation from young Nicky (Flynn’s performance is as muted as he’s ever been). But Hawes and the screenwriters steer away from delving into psychological inquiries.

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They seem less interested in why Winton did it and more that he simply just did. Bound by certain inherent values of decency and kindness instilled in him by his mother (Helena Bonham Carter), he applied his skill for paperwork to the logistical nightmare that was extracting these kids from a terrible situation. He and his friends, Doreen Warriner (Romola Garai) and Trevor Chadwick (Alex Sharp), describe themselves as simply ordinary people raising an army of ordinary people to do something not only good but life-saving for innocent children caught in the maw of war.

“One Life” is a slow burn, slowly establishing Winton’s modest character as a younger and older man, but when it cracks open, it is a deeply moving portrait of true human goodness. The emotional resonance comes not from the dramatic wartime events, but rather from the long-term effects of Winton’s efforts many years later. His story proves that a few months of helping others can turn into generational legacies, that 600 souls can turn into 6,000, and that one life can have a lasting impact on the world.

Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

'One Life'

Rated: PG for thematic material, smoking and some language Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes Playing: In wide release Friday, March 15

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  1. Life movie review & film summary (2015)

    Advertisement. Corbijn's "Life" is his fourth feature picture and in a sense his most ambitious, tackling the still highly mythologized and idolized 1950s film acting sensation James Dean, focusing on a few weeks before the 1955 film "East of Eden" premiered and made him into a particularly combustible superstar practically overnight ...

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    In 1955, a photographer for Magnum, Dennis Stock, shadowed and snapped an ascendant James Dean for Life magazine, a few months before Dean died in a car accident. Mr. Mr.

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    Life is a 2015 biographical drama film directed by Anton Corbijn and written by Luke Davies.It is based on the friendship of Life photographer Dennis Stock and American actor James Dean, starring Robert Pattinson as Stock and Dane DeHaan as Dean.. The film is an American, British, German, Canadian and Australian co-production, produced by Iain Canning and Emile Sherman from See-Saw Films and ...

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    Life: Directed by Anton Corbijn. With Robert Pattinson, Peter Lucas, Lauren Gallagher, Kendal Rae. A photographer for LIFE Magazine is assigned to shoot pictures of James Dean.

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    'Life': Berlin Review. Dane DeHaan plays James Dean while Robert Pattinson is the LIFE magazine photographer who captured the elusive star in a series of iconic 1955 portraits.

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    There is no chemisty between Robert Pattinson, who plays Life photographer Dennis Stock, and Dane DeHaan as James Dean in this somnolent film about the magazine's striking 1955 photo shoot

  8. 'Life' Review: Dane DeHaan Makes a Fine James Dean

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  9. Life Movie Review

    Parents need to know that Life takes a look at the early career of actor James Dean (Dane DeHaan) and his relationship with Dennis Stock (Robert Pattinson), a photographer for Life magazine who captured some of the most iconic images of the budding star. Expect plenty of smoking, as was common during the 1950s, and a few scenes show people drinking heavily and popping pills.

  10. Life (2015)

    Film Movie Reviews Life — 2015. Life. 2015. 1h 51m. Biography/Drama. Advertisement. Cast. ... The new James Dean biopic Life casts former teen icon Robert Pattinson not as the brooding ...

  11. Life (2015)

    5/10. An unfulfilled promise. michel_broeders 26 September 2015. "Life (2015)" is the fourth film directed by notorious Dutch photographer and director Anton Corbijn, in which we get a look into the life of James Dean.

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  14. Life

    Life is just fine. Telling the story of a photoshoot done for Life Magazine by photographer Dennis Stock (Robert Pattinson) of James Dean (Dane DeHaan) before he really became James Dean, Life is an interesting film with some nice Golden Age of Hollywood name drops and some slick digital cinematography, but it just feels done before.

  15. Life (2015) Review

    Life (2015) Review. Cast: Robert Pattinson, Dane Dehaan, Ben Kingsley, Joel Edgerton. Plot: Life is a biopic about James Dean's turbulent and short life and it is centres mostly on his relationship with Life photographer Dennis Stock. I had been waiting for this film for such a long time and when I finally had the chance to watch it I was ...

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    DeHaan infects the screen with his performance, with Anton Corbijn shaping his movie around the actor. Where this is most emotively felt is in the pacing. The film ambles through the worlds of ...

  17. Life review: James Dean movie is a cause without a rebel

    This was published 8 years ago. Life review: James Dean movie is a cause without a rebel Dane DeHaan fails to capture the defiance of magnetic teen James Dean in the movie 'Life'.

  18. James Dean, before he was a 'Rebel'

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  19. Geek Review: Life (2015 film)

    In Life, we are treated with a very light touch biographical drama which encompasses the interactions between Photographer Dennis Stock (Robert Pattinson) and James Dean (Dane DeHaan).While the 1950s might have looked different, the motivations behind each character are still very much relatable even in the present. Depending on which stage in your life you might be at, Stock and Dean ...

  20. My Life With James Dean

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  21. My Life With James Dean

    Full Review | Original Score: 8 | Nov 3, 2018. Norman Gidney Film Threat. My Life with James Dean is a traipsing treatise through the lives of charming characters longing for a little more ...

  22. My Life With James Dean

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  24. One Life movie review & film summary (2024)

    An elderly British man named Nicholas Winton sits in the front row of a television studio watching a silly chat show called, "That's Life." The host explains to the viewers that more than 40 years earlier, just before World War II, as the Nazis were invading Czechoslovakia, Winton arranged for the rescue of hundreds of children from Prague.

  25. 'One Life' review: Holocaust hero's story is told modestly

    "One Life" weaves together two periods in Winton's life, 50 years apart. Anthony Hopkins plays Winton in 1987, enjoying a life of peaceful retirement with his wife, Grete (Lena Olin).

  26. Dean Richard's Reviews "Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire" Out Now

    Find out on this week's Dean's list movie review. WHNT-TV Huntsville. Dean Richard's Reviews "Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire" Out Now | March 22, 2024 | News 19 at 9 a.m. ... Former CEO Ends His Life ...