VA Film Festival Shot by Shot

Hello movie fans:

One of the biggest highlights of the Virginia film festival are the shot by shot workshops. We saw some good ones like Roger Ebert and Chinatown. This year it was the playwright, Stewart Stern, and Rebel without a Cause. He wrote it and was friends with James Dean. He gave really good insights about the idea behind the movie. He told us it was the WWII veteran fathers that came home and were silent to not only their experiences in war but everything else. Their children seemed cut off. You saw this in such movies as the Best Years of My Life and The Gray Flannel Suit. Now their children rebel in search of meaning in their lives. We really needed two sessions, because we only saw about 1/3 of the film in two hours since Stewart tended to talk in detail and we just ran out of time. Now, I picked up a book on James Dean and I will have to rent the movie! --Bryan