{"id":3768,"date":"2011-11-03T12:18:49","date_gmt":"2011-11-03T16:18:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mondomark.com\/wordpress\/?p=2540"},"modified":"2011-11-03T12:18:49","modified_gmt":"2011-11-03T16:18:49","slug":"nicholas-ray-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=3768","title":{"rendered":"Nicholas Ray: Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Just uploaded are a pair of documentary reviews that are really two parts of a three-film arc covering Nicholas Ray\u2019s final years, as seen through the eyes by very different filmmakers.<\/p>\n

In 1975, David Helpern constructed a doc around Ray as a maverick, back at work again. He visited the set of Ray & his students at the farm they called home after Harpur College wasn\u2019t too crazy about the total immersion design of the film class, causing them to set up shop far away from the school campus and indulge in ‘all filmmaking, all the time.’<\/p>\n

It was the polar end of the spectrum, in which students & teacher spent too much time together making and remaking scenes for a film with an experimental edge that would never be perfect.<\/p>\n

In this behind-the-scenes drama, the teacher struggles to find his place in the world after a substantial phase of his career in Hollywood is long gone, and students become codependent on the icon they have as their teacher, friend, and father figure, while drinking and obsessive working habits are taken beyond the traditional boundaries of a pedagogical elective. As the group approaches the two-year mark, the cracks create ruptures in areas of tolerance and behavioral norms, and petty squabbles \u2013 a pet peeve of Ray \u2013 becomes common between teacher and student.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a scenario for a fascinating tale, and yet the experience was unique and did inspire some students to pursue careers in the arts. Ray himself went on to sobriety, teach again, and find a new calling; and perhaps internally reckoned feature filmmaking would be, \u00a0at best, a rare occurrence from then on.<\/p>\n

Studios had started to give carte blanche to a new wave of film student wunderkind and mavericks, and the results were The Last Movie<\/strong> (Dennis Hopper), Heaven\u2019s Gate<\/strong> (Michael Cimino), New York, New York<\/strong> (Martin Scorsese), 1941<\/strong> (Steven Spielberg), Sorcerer<\/strong> (William Friedkin), and THX 1138<\/a><\/strong> [M<\/a>] (George Lucas) \u2013 not failures per se, but movies that radically underperformed, neglected to reap the high investment to cover their high budgets, or in the case of Heaven\u2019s Gate<\/strong>, help kill a studio.<\/p>\n

For Ray, even if he could\u2019ve made a film with studio backing, one suspects there would\u2019ve been plenty of strings attached as even wunderkinds had tested the limits of studio tolerance. While the early seventies produced some of the greatest American films, the late seventies revealed what happens when power goes to anyone\u2019s head \u2013 and the making of We Can\u2019t Go Home Again<\/a><\/strong> [M<\/a>] (1976) was a small scale version of a production without boundaries \u2013 filming until exhaustion, running on fumes, and repeating the process daily until the more money was raised.<\/p>\n

Helpern\u2019s doc, I\u2019m a Stranger Here Myself<\/a><\/strong> [M<\/a>], balances the WCGHA on-set footage with interviews material featuring actress Natalie Wood, producer John Houseman, and director \/ former critic Francois Truffaut, and it\u2019s a great package that uses contrasts to evoke an artist in transition. The doc was made before Ray edited WCGHA into a rough version for Cannes, and there\u2019s anticipation that perhaps the film Ray was creating would lead to something \u2013 a deal, an association, a project, or restore some professional respect.<\/p>\n

In his essay \u201cLooking for Nicholas Ray<\/a>,\u201d writer Jonathan Rosenbaum relates Wim Wenders\u2019 reaction to seeing footage from WCGHA:<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I first saw We Can\u2019t Go Home Again,\u201d Wim Wenders told me, \u201cNick showed it to me on an editing table. (Wenders was editing his film The American Friend at the time, in which Ray played the part of an art forger.) \u201cI thought it was pretty revolting. I mean, I was shocked by the amateurish aspect of it, also the sense of destruction that was in there \u2014 both together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSince then, I\u2019ve seen it six or seven times,\u201d Wenders went on. \u201cFinally, I got to see a new print \u2014 at least the image was new, the sound track was just as lousy as ever \u2014 where the image was really brilliant and absolutely mind-blowing. You just have to imagine the sound in order to appreciate it, and you realize just what a great movie is hidden in there. Not even hidden, it\u2019s there \u2014 you see it.\u201d<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

Wenders\u2019 shift perhaps explains the challenge of trying to make sense of an impenetrable work that clearly left a strong impression, and whether he had a change of heart because he was growing close to Ray during the making of Lightning Over Water<\/a><\/strong> (1980) or found meaning in the film\u2019s rough structure, it\u2019s a case where perhaps the ambition within an impenetrable work is so impressive, it changes one\u2019s \u2018revulsion\u2019 or \u2018bafflement\u2019 into respect and adulation.<\/p>\n

Wenders and Ray attempted to work a bit of the experimental narrative into Lightning<\/strong>\u2019s otherwise documentary design, but the film was obviously affected by its star\u2019s death, leaving no opportunity for reshoots, and leaving us with a flawed and sometimes frustrating work.<\/p>\n

Susan Ray\u2019s Don\u2019t Expect Too Much<\/a><\/strong> [M<\/a>] (2011) is the wrap-up of all three, and it\u2019s a sober (and traditional) narrative on the making of WCGHA, filled with interviews and rare footage to once again provide contrast to a complex director who was putting everything of himself into one project, and searching for a new life purpose after several career hurdles.<\/p>\n

According to his widow, Ray had an early interest in applying multi-image filmmaking to projects, but the cost, existing technology, and studio interest just weren’t there (or at least for him. One suspects that had Stanley Kubrick wanted to shoot a film in a multiple image design after 2001: A Space Odyssey<\/strong>, MGM or Warner Bros. would\u2019ve opened the vault doors).<\/p>\n

Susan Ray stated in the Q&A that followed the WCGHA screening at the TIFF Bell Lightbox this past Sunday that Ray had shot test footage for a proposed project in Europe, but the footage is long lost (unless it\u2019s sitting in deep storage in a Zagreb laboratory or elsewhere).<\/p>\n

The dream to experiment was applied to Ray\u2019s aborted Chicago Conspiracy Trial film (of which some of the footage appears at the beginning of WCGHA), and no doubt he had plans to break more rules had another project surfaced after WCGHA screened in Cannes in 1973.<\/p>\n

According to the Nicholas Ray Foundation, to celebrate the director\u2019s centenary, a Collector\u2019s Edition DVD<\/a> is planned, featuring both the Cannes and later workprint version(s) of WCGHA, plus Susan Ray and David Helpern\u2019s documentaries (the latter of which is currently archived on YouTube). Packed into the proposed set is the short film Marco<\/strong> (1978), and \u201cThe Janitor,\u201d Ray\u2019s segment in the 1974 Dutch anthology, Wet Dreams<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In addition to the aforementioned film reviews, I\u2019ve interpolated some brief audio from the WCGHA Q&A, plus a short side interview I did with Susan Ray, regarding Ray\u2019s role as teacher.<\/p>\n

One final comment: there is a conundrum with Susan Ray\u2019s doc in that for some, it should be seen prior to WCGHA, and yet to (presumably) be affected the way Nicholas Ray intended, WCGHA ought to be seen with no prior knowledge. While it did seem odd for the TBL to screen the doc prior to WCGHA this past weekend, for myself, it was useful because it placed it in some context without spoiling its plot, its sequences, and its finale.<\/p>\n

(This due to an age issue. In 1968, I was falling out of my crib onto the parquet floor at night, and between 1971-1973 I was playing with Hot Wheels autos. I do recall seeing a moon landing on TV, but that’s the extent of my vicarious experiences with the era’s momentous social turmoil.)<\/p>\n

Blathering has now ended. You may now read the reviews.<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>, Editor
\nKQEK.com <\/strong>( Main Site<\/a> \/ Mobile Site<\/a> )<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Film reviews of Susan Ray’s documentary Don’t Expect Too Much (2011), which recently screened at the TIFF Bell Lightbox, and David Helpern’s rarely seen Nicholas Ray doc I’m a Stranger Here Myself (1975), plus more epic Editorial Blather.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[853,814,815,658],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-YM","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3768"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3768\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}