James Dean received the first posthumous acting nomination from the Academy Awards for his performance as the troubled Cal in East of Eden, his first major film role. (He would die tragically just a few months after the film was released.) It’s a riveting performance, one of the most vulnerable and moving I’ve ever seen. The film, directed with style and elegance by Elia Kazan, is based on the last quarter of John Steinbeck’s sprawling novel. Steinbeck believed the power of storytelling was in its ability to remind us of our own humanity, and when I learned that, it helped me understand why I’ve loved this movie for so long.
