Can’t find cause for ‘Rebel’ either

Not being a close follower of the contemporary art world, I was drawn to Christopher Knight’s review of James Franco’s “Rebel” because of its derivation from the classic Nicholas Ray/james Dean film, “Rebel Without a Cause” [“Maybe Just Watch the Movie Instead,” May 26].

Although no actors in that classic movie were endangered or harmed during the 1955 shoot, apparently Franco in 2012 found it necessary to have himself mutilated by a switchblade for a video in his installation, an act of barbarism which Knight reports with no more affect than if he were describing a brush stroke in a watercolor. When did bloodshed become an accepted mode of artistic expression?

Preston Neal Jones Hollywood

I assure you, the all-dead cast of “Rebel Without a Cause” that James Franco worships so much are turning over in their graves — my father, Nick Adams, included. “Rebel” is 50 shades of genitalia celluloid, where hungry ghosts sloppily wade and writhe within the walls of Bungalow 2.

The piece that struck a nerve was the white motorcycle resting in peace at the bottom of a tranquil blue pool. I knelt down to touch the water to see if it was real and looked up and saw a long, haunting highway pointing toward the California mountains, a place where they all must have met on the other side, after they left this ridiculous, heartbreaking and beautiful world behind.

Allyson Adams Agoura Hills