East of Eden filming locations
Directed by Elia Kazan in the year 1955, East of Eden is a period drama film which is based on a novel of the same name written by John Steinbeck. The film revolves around a young man who tries his best to figure out his life and at the same time win the love and respect of his highly religious father against his favoured brother.
The film is set in the 20th century and stars Julie Harris, James Dean (in his first major screen role), and Raymond Massey. Burl Ives, Richard Davalos, and Jo Van Fleet (also her first screen role) can also be seen.
The plot: overview
The storyline is based on the biblical story of Cain and Abel. A farmer and the wartime draft board chairman, Adam Trask, had two sons, young adults named Cal and Aron. Adam is a religious man and his son Cal is moody and believes that his dad only loves Aron.
Aron has a girlfriend named Abra. Adam had a plan for a vegetable shipping business but that ended up in loss. Cal decides to get back the money his father had lost and therefore enters the bean-growing business for he knows that if the United States enters a war, the price of beans will go high up. He hoped this would get him the love and respect of his father.
We also see an arc of love between Cal and Abra. His business idea was a success, and he decided to gift the profit to his father on his birthday. The same day, Aron announced that he and Abra are engaged, Adam is happy no doubt, but both Cal and Abra are upset because of this.
Adam did not accept the gift from Cal as he saw that as War profiteering and that got Cal shattered. To console him, Abra follows him while Aron sees this and orders him to stay away from her.
This got him angry and Cal then took Aron to their mother, Kate.
Aron’s decision
Aron sees the state of his mother, who he believed was dead and loses his mind, he gets drunk and gets himself enlisted in the army. Adam tried to stop him but he couldn’t and then he suffered a stroke and he gets paralysed. Cal tried talking to him but received a response only when Abra talked Adam into showing some love towards Cal before it’s too late.
The shooting locations
Although the movie was set in the 20th century, Monterey, California, most of the scenes were shot in Mendocino, California. Some scenes were also filmed in Salinas valley.
In the film we could see some wide-angle shots of Monterey County. The movie was shot in the early 50s and a lot of the areas are shown in their natural form.
Reception of the film
The movie was listed as one of the 400 best American films of all time by the American film institute. James and Richard’s performances were highly praised. The film has had a great impact on the cinema and current-time actors like Leonardo DiCaprio name the movie as the reason they got “obsessed with movies.”
