The name is absent

Appendix 3.2: Sample films - synopses and character lists
REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE US 56

major theme concerns the proper balance between pragmatism and
idealism played out in the conflict between the individual and
the collective: this balance, the film suggests, is a
fundamental constituent of the adulthood to which Jim aspires.

Finally the third location is the abandoned mansion. Here,
like the scenes in the observatory but unlike the evenly lit
domestic interiors, the lighting is dark and much of the
action is shot in extremely high or low angles, often in long
or medium long shot. Whereas in the domestic interiors Jim
seems barely to fit into the room or the frame, in the mansion
scenes there is plenty of space. Room for Jim, Judy and Plato
to play 'house’ like children, and room for the genuine terror
of the chase when the gang catch up with them. In this
spacious and abandoned house (the past, or the future?) Jim
and Judy, it is implied, discover an adult sexuality expressed
in the terms of this film as ∙love^l and this discovery appears
to resolve satisfactorily the unbearable loneliness which had
previously led to their delinquent behaviour. Unfortunately
there is no room in the real couple they form for Plato,
nicknamed, as the negress housekeeper has told the police
interviewer, for the Greek philosopher of the ideal: Plato has
to die. He does so as a direct consequence of the fear and
confusion prevalent in the adult community: it is his
recognition of this unpalatable truth that finally makes a man
of Jim.

Through a study of the difficult moment in parenting when
children are no longer childlike, the film, very largely by
means of the highly choreographed camera positions and
movements, insists on a consideration of the individual's
articulation of the real:ideal negotiations which underlay all
social interaction.

Female characters in order of appearance, character groups

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