Itzhak Perlman: American Masters

James Dean: Sense Memories

James Dean has long survived his brief 24 years. Born in 1931 and dead by 1955, it is as if he had a destiny, rather than a life. September/October 2005 marks the 50th anniversary of both Dean's fatal automobile accident and the release of the film with which he is forever identified, Rebel Without a Cause. A cinema figure of such iconic and mythic dimensions, it is said of Dean that he didn't just change the way people acted, he changed the way people lived. He was an original, he was a natural. Synonymous with adolescent angst, he also redefined the American male ideal, making vulnerable sexy and alienation desirable. Remarkably, there are only three films to his legacy - East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant - crafted with three seminal directors, Elia Kazan, Nicholas Ray and George Stevens. Reality and art and closely linked in Dean and are seamlessly woven in this documentary - his film personae are all misfits, consummate outsiders, characters in search of identity and meaning, who echo the themes of loss and abandonment in his own life experience.