It's always great to meet another Ray fan. Most of his key films (Johnny Guitar, Bigger than Life, The Lusty Men) are criminally not on Region-1 DVD, and the only way to see them is to catch them on TCM or buy a cheap DVD-r on the internet, which is hardly the treatment this fine director deserves; he truly is among the most underrated of all American film directors; I always have to say "he's the guy who directed Rebel Without a Cause" to make people remember who he was. A few months ago, I was in my film history class and we couldn't decide on a film noir to watch; when I suggested this title, I could hear crickets at 2:00 in the afternoon. Nobody had heard of it--and they felt safer going for Double Indemnity or The Big Sleep (you know, the "fun" film noirs that everybody's heard of, where the women say smart things and probably die at the end). We eventually watched Touch of Evil, which is brilliantly executed but lacks the emotional punch of this heartbreaking romance.
Nicholas Ray had a gift to connect with his actors; if you've read the biography Nicholas Ray: An American Journey, he did go out of his way to try to bond with his actors, and he arguably got the greatest performances out of them, from Dean to Mitchum to Bogart (I think that this truly is his greatest performance and I'll even go as far as say that his Oscar win for The African Queen was a consolidation prize for not being nominated here; Bogart had to walk the tightrope between a gentle, loving man and a self-loathing, violent mess. The payoff is a masterpiece of a performance--in the final scene, his face and body language alone is worth a thousand words). One thing that I've come to realize from watching Marlon Brando's astounding performance in Last Tango in Paris is that the most glorious dramatic performances always arise from being totally vulnerable with yourself, having the courage to reveal your flaws and your pain. Nicholas Ray was somehow able to convince his actors to be totally naked with their emotions.
As a side note, Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential) is a huge fan of this movie and has spoken at length on why he admires it so greatly, and has said that he in turn has tried to bond with his actors in the same way that Ray did. You can read an article here: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9506E5DD1F3FF936A25751C 1A9669C8B63
I was born when she kissed me
I died when she left me
I lived a few weeks while she loved me
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parris2003
16 years ago
Thanx , We will have to Start Petition to try and get those dvd's released. You are dead right about Nick Ray though , even most film student's i know are not a hundred percent on who he is , they keep asking me if i mean Sanjit Ray .
Nice to hear from you stay cool man.
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16 years ago
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Goodbye_Ruby_Tuesday
16 years ago
You saw On Dangerous Ground in theaters? You lucky S.O.B.! I'll never know how Bernard Herrmann sounds on a big-screen.
It is a very good movie, uncharacteristic happy ending and all. In retrospect, even though Ray was far more interested in his violent (male) protagonists, his female characters are not weak or angelic; they are also complex and strong. I read somewhere that Ray tried to make Laurel (Gloria Grahame) more simplistic to contrast with Dix's complexities, but nonetheless she still retains so many layers, and in my opinion she is even more enigmatic than Dix.
I was born when she kissed me
I died when she left me
I lived a few weeks while she loved me
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artihcus022
16 years ago
Ray was one of the few Hollywood directors who really gave women strong characters and he even got Cyd Charisse(known for MGM Musicals) to play a strong dramatic role in Party Girl to prove that she could act.
Coming back to Ray and women, strong women characters are there all through his filmography but Ray's films actually go deeper in the sense that all his romantic pairing are equally matched. Like in Rebel Without A Cause the love triangle between Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo over James Dean is handled with equal respect for the sensuality of both characters. Which I guess must be due to Ray being a bisexual which allowed him to appreciate both male and female sexuality.
It is a very good movie, uncharacteristic happy ending and all.
Actually that ending was Ray's preferred ending. But Hughes re-shuffled and mangled the film so badly that it isn't as convincing as it ought to have been.
"Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs." - Nathanael West
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Goodbye_Ruby_Tuesday
16 years ago
In Rebel Without A Cause the love triangle between Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo over James Dean is handled with equal respect for the sensuality of both characters. Which I guess must be due to Ray being a bisexual which allowed him to appreciate both male and female sexuality.
During my film history class we had a presentation by a woman who was--supposedly--an expert on homosexuality in films. She thought that Sal Mineo was killed off and "punished" because he was gay. I wanted to cry out that Ray himself was bisexual and this could never be the case; Plato was killed in the end most likely for emotional impact (you can't kill off James Dean or Natalie Wood because they're the lovers, they're the stars). And if you feel sympathy for a subtly gay character in the 1950s and today, how can that be a negative thing? Nicholas Ray *did* handle the love triangle with respect and dignity.
I was born when she kissed me
I died when she left me
I lived a few weeks while she loved me
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artihcus022
16 years ago
And if you feel sympathy for a subtly gay character in the 1950s and today, how can that be a negative thing? Nicholas Ray *did* handle the love triangle with respect and dignity.
I think the film and maybe your teacher demands more than sympathy. Ray after all structured the film so well that in the end one feels a deeper connection between Jim and Plato than Jim and the Natalie Wood character.
Ray wasn't interested in simple sympathy either. His characters in all his movies are always likable and human, even in something as baroque as Johnny Guitar but the fact is all of his characters are one way or another partially responsible for the traps that they are in despite the great social constraints against which they were trying to face. And Ray in his movies wants the audience to see when righteous indignation ends and personal responsibility begins. In Rebel..., he's definitely on the side of the kids but at the same time he wants the audience to look past them and see how they react. Like Natalie Wood's ignorance of Plato, for one thing and when they get together Jim's ignorance of Plato. I suppose that if there's any reason why Plato died then it's because he was the only one who was completely a victim and basically blameless and his death was a kind of loss of innocence.
Like Dixon Steele has legitimate reasons for hating the place he lives in - the complete materialism, the absence of any dignity and self-respect and in the case of the girl who get's killed and even Gloria Grahame's character, prostitution of one's dignity(not actual prostitution). After all the script girl character was only dating her boyfriend to climb higher in the ladder and Dixon saw right through that and Laurel(Gloria Grahame) used to be a kept woman of some businessman who's trying to survive in Hollywood.
But then Dixon is so full of loathing for himself and for his town that he ruins the first chance for real love that both of them had something which he has only himself to blame.
"Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs." - Nathanael West
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