It’s long been claimed that James Dean was bisexual, despite there not being all that much empirical evidence for it. It’s also been said he was a major masochist, who enjoyed things such as having cigarettes extinguished on him. It looks like the new film Joshua Tree, 1951: A Portrait Of James Dean is going to take these ideas and run with them.
The movie will screen at LA’s Outfest, but you can get a feel for the movie from the trailer above.
With the movie, filmmaker Matthew Mishory has imagined what the star’s life was like before he became a household name. It sees Dean (Jamie Preston) in the early 1950s, living with a male roommate with whom he’s also romantically involved. However he’s also tangled up with female classmates and older benefactors, who find it difficult to keep hold of the idiosyncratic young man.
“Our film has nothing to do with any other film that has been made about James Dean,’ Mishory told Gay Star News. ‘As the title suggests, it is a portrait, a moment in time. Our approach was to find the antecedents to a remarkable life and career and to tell that story not by using the language of conventional Hollywood filmmaking but instead by using the language of memories and of dreams.’
The film screens on Monday at Outfest, but there’s no news on any UK screenings.
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