Teaser trailer for Joshua Tree 1951: A Portrait of James Dean.
Although the roommate in Joshua Tree 1951 is never named, it's clear that the 2006 memoir by William Bast—James Dean's real-life roommate and purported lover during the time the two were launching their Hollywood careers—is the jumping-off point of this sensuous examination of a star on the cusp of fame. Matthew Mishory's feature-length debut has a vivid imagination all its own, going sexily where Bast feared to tread. Amid elegant black-and-white shots of the California desert and slow pans across the flesh of young wannabe stars tanning by the pool, Mishory employs a series of extended flashbacks to portray a very randy Jimmy Dean. James Preston (former Abercrombie & Fitch model) inhabits the role dreamily, letting his admirers hang their fantasies on him. Do we know James Dean any better by the end? Perhaps as well as he was known by his Hollywood intimates—and by himself.