I was finishing up an interview with “Control” and “The American” and “A Most Wanted Man” director Anton Corbijn, and we’d switched to just chatting about his current project, “Life,” a movie about a photographer for Life Magazine (Robert Pattinson) assigned to photograph the iconic American rebel (Dane DeHaan) at his 1955 peak. We both marveled than an actor dead for almost 60 years, with such a tiny filmography, is still a cornerstone of pop culture.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Corbijn says. “I was in Berlin yesterday, within ten minutes of walking around downtown, I met two people wearing James Dean t-shirts. I hadn’t noticed how much he’s still this icon — of fashion, cool, what have you.”

Yeah, I offer, “He’s like America’s Che Guevarra.”

“Exactly! All these kids have him on t-shirts and on the walls of their dormitories, and they don’t really know who he is. Just like Che.”