Line #41 Creator/NicholasRay


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nicholas_ray_2668.jpg]]
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3	->''"There was theatre ([[Creator/DWGriffith Griffith]]), poetry ([[Creator/FriedrichWilhelmMurnau Murnau]]), painting ([[Creator/RobertoRossellini Rossellini]]), dance ([[Creator/SergeiEisenstein Eisenstein]]), music ([[Creator/JeanRenoir Jean Renoir]]). Henceforth there is cinema. And [[IAmTheNoun the cinema is Nicholas Ray]]."''
4	-->-- '''Creator/JeanLucGodard'''
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6	Nicholas Ray (August 7, 1911 – June 16, 1979) is the original cult director. With one solid exception, his films never became box-office hits and he never attained the fame or cultural and institutional appeal of Creator/JohnFord, Creator/AlfredHitchcock, Creator/EliaKazan or Creator/BillyWilder. His films were more popular among a circle of admirers in France, Europe and independent-minded young adults. He made films in all kinds of genres, including FilmNoir, TheWestern, TheMusical and EpicMovie but created a distinct visual style and tone that made him one-of-a-kind.
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8	Oh, and that one exception? That was ''Film/RebelWithoutACause'', starring Creator/JamesDean. You may remember the final shot, a man walking up to the Observatory with a briefcase; that was [[CreatorCameo the director himself]]. In his lifetime, he worked with the likes of Creator/FarleyGranger, Creator/RobertRyan, Creator/RobertMitchum, Creator/HumphreyBogart, Creator/JamesMason, Creator/ChristopherPlummer, Creator/BurlIves, Creator/SterlingHayden, Creator/JoanCrawford in addition to the cast of Rebel. As critic Robin Wood remarked, "no one gives a bad performance in a Ray film."
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10	He was also noted for a messy, turbulent personal life, not unlike that of his characters. Already being an erratic student prone to [[TheAlcoholic alcoholism]], his drinking and drug problems only worsened as his career progressed, culminating in him collapsing on the set of ''55 Days in Peking'', his final Hollywood film. His marriage to Creator/GloriaGrahame infamously ended when he discovered her in bed with [[PaedoHunt his 13-year-old son Tony, whom she'd later marry.]]
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12	Ray's Hollywood career ended with the MediaNotes/FallOfTheStudioSystem which led to a long period in Europe. He returned to America at the height of TheSixties and was thrilled at seeing a culture heralded by his most famous film. He became a beloved teacher at New York University and SUNY Binghamton, one of his students in the former was Creator/JimJarmusch, with Ray making his final film, the experimental ''We Can't Go Home Again'' with students from the latter that wasn't officially released until 2012. The German director Creator/WimWenders was another fan and he and Ray collaborated on ''Lightning Over Water'' as Ray was on his deathbed, the film becoming finally a documentary about his final days. He's coming back into focus in the 21st century especially with the popularity of his lesser known titles like ''Film/InALonelyPlace'' on DVD.
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14	Important books on Nicholas Ray include ''Nicholas Ray: An American Life'' by Bernard Eisenschitz which is not only considered his definitive biography, but one of the best biographies on any film director, currently in print from the University of Minnesota Press. Other books include, ''I Was Interrupted'', a collection of articles, interviews, and personal notes by Ray during his time as teacher in New York.
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16	!! Filmography
17	[[index]]
18	* ''Film/TheyLiveByNight'' (1948)
19	* ''Film/InALonelyPlace'' (1950)
20	* ''The Lusty Men'' (1952)
21	* ''Film/OnDangerousGround'' (1952)
22	* ''Film/JohnnyGuitar'' (1954)
23	* ''Film/RebelWithoutACause'' (1955)
24	* ''Film/BiggerThanLife'' (1956)
25	* ''Bitter Victory'' (1957)
26	* ''Wind Across the Everglades'' (1958)
27	* ''Party Girl'' (1958)
28	* ''The Savage Innocents'' (1960)
29	* ''Film/KingOfKings'' (1961)
30	* ''Film/FiftyFiveDaysAtPeking'' (1963)
31	* ''We Can't Go Home Again'' (1973)
32	[[/index]]
33	* ''Film/TheAmericanFriend'' (1977) -- actor only
34	* ''Lightning Over Water'' (1980) (Documentary by Creator/WimWenders showing Ray's final days).
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36	----
37	!! Some of the Tropes appearing in Ray's works:
38	* BrokenAce: A repeated theme in his films is people, adults, who were once top of their game but because of their trauma, DarkAndTroubledPast or other frustration are not entirely functional. Creator/HumphreyBogart in ''Film/InALonelyPlace'' is a notable example. As is Robert Ryan in ''Film/OnDangerousGround'' and James Mason in ''Bigger Than Life''.
39	--> '''Nicholas Ray''': "My heroes are no more neurotic than the audience. Unless you can feel that a hero is just [[PrecisionFStrike as fucked up]] as you are, that you would make the same mistakes that he would make, you can have no satisfaction when he does commit a heroic act. Because then you can say, ‘Hell, I could have done that too.’ And that’s the obligation of the filmmaker — of the theater-worker — to give a heightened sense of experience to the people who pay to come see his work."
40	* DysfunctionJunction: A favored theme in his movies is to show people trying to form communities but not cohering because they are too different or have different issues. ''Film/RebelWithoutACause'' is a notable example.
41	* FaceDeathWithDignity: Wenders' documentary on Ray, ''Lightning Over Water'' shows Ray in his final days, dying from cancer and trying vainly to continue living by working on many projects (which both he and Wenders know won't get made), giving talks at universities about his films and conducting various theatre productions. Ray even goes as far as to fictionally dramatize hospital visits by various people.
42	* GenreBusting: Never one to set truck by conventional genres. His western ''Johnny Guitar'' is one of the most complex, intelligent and ironic takes on the genre, one which doesn't feel entirely ''western'' either.
43	* JitterCam: Ray is considered by some to be a pioneer of this. He attached cameras on the body and person and used handheld shots in ''On Dangerous Ground'' and ''The Lusty Men'', the former to convey the chaos and wildness of urban life and the latter to convey the craziness of rodeo riding (he attached the cameras on a person to simulate the effect of being on top of a wild bull).
44	* RomanticismVersusEnlightenment: Ray is generally Enlightened (socially progressive and leftist in inclination) and left-Romantic (a la Shelley, Keats and Byron) drawn to strong passions, turbulent ByronicHero, social outsiders and alternative cultures.
45	** Many noted that his movies have an ethnological quality focusing on Poachers (''Wind Across the Everglades''), Teen Gangs (''Rebel Without A Cause''), Rodeo Performers (''The Lusty Men''), Gypsies (''Hot Blood'') and Inuit (''The Savage Innocents'').
46	** He was admired by the New Wave and by Martin Scorsese for bringing documentary elements to his movies, as seen in his use of handheld cameras in ''The Lusty Men'' and ''Film/OnDangerousGround'' and even his film on Jesus, ''Film/KingOfKings'' is considered interesting for its attempt to situate the Gospel narrative in a strongly researched historical backdrop, with the opening section compared by Martin Scorsese to a newsreel about the Ancient World.
47	* PerspectiveFlip: His film on Inuit, called ''The Savage Innocents'', is considered to be a rare successful example in portraying First Nations-Settler conflicts. It's heavily compromised (with Creator/AnthonyQuinn playing the main Inuit role) but it's also unusually successful for its point of view:
48	--> '''Tag Gallagher''': ''The Savage Innocents'' possibly comes closest to a non-white point of view of any film by an important filmmaker (Nicholas Ray); it goes out of its way to render the strange and bizarre as normal, and succeeds so well in inducting us into the alien sensibilities of its Eskimos that, by the time a white man shows up, we feel him as the abnormal one.
49	* StepfordSuburbia: His films ''Film/RebelWithoutACause'' and ''Bigger Than Life'' tackled both concepts.
50	* ShortLivedBigImpact:[[invoked]] He did live a long life, but his most prolific period in the film industry was a mere ten or thirteen years during which he made films that were admired by the likes of Creator/JeanLucGodard, Creator/FrancoisTruffaut, Creator/MartinScorsese and Creator/JimJarmusch among others.
51	* ShoutOut:
52	** Creator/JeanLucGodard famously dedicated his film ''Made in USA'' to "Nick and [[Creator/SamuelFuller Sam]], who raised me to respect image and sound."
53	** Music/BobDylan wrote his song "The Mighty Quinn" after seeing his film ''The Savage Innocents''.
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Context Creator / NicholasRay