Welcome, gentle readers, to a new idea I’m toying with here at Piercing Pop Culture.

I play a good game, but I’m not a good cinephile… despite how hard I try. This is why I’m welcoming you to the Cinephile Confessional. This is the place where I sit down and talk about my dirty little filmgoing secrets. These are the things I’m not proud of. The classics that I didn’t like. The sainted classics that didn’t work for me.

These are the things that make me wonder… should I have my cinephile card revoked? Kids, none of us are “good” little cinephiles.

My Rebel Without a Cause road was a long and complicated one. I first watched the 1955 classic way back in ye olden, golden days. I think I was in high school. I’d been working my way through the AFI Top 100 films at the time. Not only was Rebel Without a Cause on the list, but I was also fixated with Natalie Wood. I grew up watching Wood in movies like Miracle on 34th Street and The Great Race. She was an icon for middle-school me.

Then, *trumpets sound* one must also mention… James Dean.

James Dean is iconic! He occupies the same sainted place as someone like Marilyn Monroe and Jean Harlow. To quote Lina Lamont in Singin’ in the Rain, they are “shimmering, glowing stars in the cinema firmament.”

Kids… I didn’t like it.

I know! I know! The nerve. I spent much of the movie rolling my eyes at what I saw as over-the-top drama, much of which (in my teenage brain) came because of Dean.

I was a teenager who didn’t get these teenagers. I mean, as a debater, student council kid… I was probably equal levels of obnoxious myself. However, Dean’s acting didn’t translate. I kept thinking… “Look at your suburban life! Things could be a heck of a lot worse!”. Must there really be so much ugly crying? The melodrama baffled me and no part of me could understand why this movie is such a sacred cow in Hollywood history.

I didn’t end up revisiting Rebel Without a Cause until I was in college and once again deep down an academically fueled Natalie Wood deep-dive.

The clouds parted and suddenly, it was like I was watching a completely different movie.

I understood it! I felt the emotion I’d missed when I was in high school… James Dean didn’t make me want to hide my face in secondhand embarrassment.

I’m ashamed to admit it… one of the worst movies I’d ever seen became one of my favorite movies.

My experience with Rebel Without a Cause taught me one thing. Works of art are unchanging. A film that was made in 1955 is (usually!) the same now as it was to audiences who saw it then. We human beings though, we’re constantly changing. Life experience, age and even perspective can change how we view a work of art.

In my case, I was not the same person in college that I was in high school (thankfully!). I’d lived more, experienced more and truthfully, watched more. My world had grown, if only a little.

This experience colored my relationship with films. It’s OKAY to not like a film… even if it’s a sainted classic. It happens! Not everything is built for everyone. With that though, it may not always be the case. Are you the same person you were twenty years ago?

Doubtful.

Never be afraid to reopen the door if you’re curious. You might be shocked by what you find.