Features / 14 August 2008
The Mystic: The Films of Nicholas Ray
One thing is certain, time and space play no role at all in the construction of a film, the cinema is unaware of them; a scene can carry you into another world, another age. One simply tries to capture, in flight, moments of truth…
—Nicholas Ray
Leafing through the collected writings of the Cahiers du Cinéma focusing on reviews from the 1950s, it’s interesting to note that an entire section is solely devoted to director Nicholas Ray; there is a subsequent chapter focusing on “Auteurs,” a label that has been consistently applied to Ray, yet the anthology’s editor singles out Ray. For those familiar with the French New Wave, whether through the Cahiers or the ensuing films (or both), it’s inevitable that the name Nicholas Ray will be mentioned in both mediums, and more than once. Jean-Luc Godard famously commented in a review of Ray’s Hot Blood:
If the cinema no longer existed, Nicholas Ray alone gives the impression of being capable of reinventing it, and what is more, of wanting to.
Godard would later name-drop Ray films like famous friends in his work—inevitably a Ray film is playing somewhere in a Godard landscape, whether it is Contempt or Pierrot le Fou, and the characters are without a doubt praising it. Godard wasn’t alone in his fervor, as he and his contemporaries – Truffaut, Rivette, Chabrol, and Rohmer – were unanimous in their praise for Ray. This admiration for Ray would spread to the United States years later; certainly Martin Scorsese has been one of his greatest champions, as well as Jim Jarmusch, who was fortunate enough to study and work with Ray while he was teaching at New York University in the 1970s.
Nicholas Raymond Kienzle (1911-79) was born in a small town in Wisconsin, and originally pursued work in radio. Ray’s talent was rewarded with a scholarship at the age of sixteen to the university of his choice; although he chose the University of Chicago, he eventually became involved in architecture with Frank Lloyd Wright. In a 1958 interview with Charles Bitsch from Cahiers, Ray explained his decision to study with Wright:
Architecture is the backbone of the arts, you know: if it is real architecture it encompasses every domain. The simple word ‘architecture’ can just as well apply to a play, a score of music, or a way of life.
Watching Ray’s films, particularly those in CinemaScope, it’s clear that Ray put Wright’s philosophical outlook on design into practice with filmmaking. The geometrically minded sets and the camera’s sense of space and framing, are all enormously important not merely for CinemaScope, but Ray’s dynamic mise en scene as a whole. Wright’s ability to weave his natural surroundings into his buildings (anyone who’s visited Wright’s home and studio in Oak Park, IL may recall the way Wright built the house around the trees on the property, allowing them to grow through the structure) might have inspired Ray as well, as the director depicts an uncanny talent at making us notice the entirety of a frame—not merely the players within it, but also how they function against and with their surroundings.
After finishing his studies with Wright, Ray moved to New York City and became involved in left-wing theater, joining the Theater of Action, then under the direction of Elia Kazan. Kazan would eventually hire Ray as an assistant for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, leading Ray to move to Hollywood to continue work in film industry. Shortly after, Ray directed his debut, They Live By Night at RKO Studios, produced by John Houseman. Ray’s relationship with Hollywood would be a fickle one; he left RKO in 1953 to work as a free agent, backed by Lew Wasserman, Ray worked steadily for a decade, until a heart attack forced him to quit the production of 55 Days at Peking, ending his career with the studios. Surviving his heart attack but remaining in ill health for the rest of his life, Ray found himself back in New York, where he lived until his death in 1979. Despite success with several films, including the enormously popular Rebel Without a Cause, and a reputation as one of America’s foremost auteurs, Ray’s work is currently difficult to locate on VHS or DVD, at least in the United States. A number of the films reviewed in this feature were taped off television or accessible only through PAL copies, evidence that Ray has a stalwart fan base that remains largely European.
Reportedly, actor Robert Mitchum (star of The Lusty Men) referred to Nicholas Ray as “The Mystic;” in terms of a director seeking a sort of spiritual, or at least, emotional truth, Ray did employ enigmatic and uncommon practices, procuring subtle meaning through an operatic filmmaking style. The clash of opposing themes in a Ray film – violence and tenderness, alienation and intimacy – produces characters on the outskirts of conventional society who are sensitive to the touch, and often ready to burst. While Ray’s skewed outsider’s perspective now feels lucid, but the raw vulnerability of his characters, and meandering, often maddening plotlines proved too much for many American viewers during Ray’s lifetime, not yet ready to accept Ray’s subversive takes on events and mindsets of the era (McCarthyism and the Nuclear family top the list). An eventual recluse, who referred to himself as a “stranger,” Nicholas Ray’s films still exude a connection with audiences, and remain some of the most startling films in contemporary cinema.
Our reviews of Nicholas Ray’s films will begin on Monday, August 18th.
Introduction by Jenny Jediny
Films
1948 – 1980
| They Live By Night | 1948 |
| Knock on Any Door | 1949 |
| A Woman’s Secret | 1949 |
| In A Lonely Place | 1950 |
| Born to Be Bad | 1950 |
| On Dangerous Ground | 1952 |
| Macao | 1952 |
| The Lusty Men | 1952 |
| Johnny Guitar | 1954 |
| High Green Wall | 1954 |
| Rebel Without a Cause | 1955 |
| Hot Blood | 1956 |
| Bigger Than Life | 1956 |
| Bitter Victory | 1957 |
| The True Story of Jesse James | 1957 |
| Party Girl | 1958 |
| King of Kings | 1961 |
| 55 Days at Peking | 1963 |
| The Janitor | 1974 |
| Lightning Over Water | 1980 |
Cullen Gallagher, Beth Gilligan, Leo Goldsmith, Jenny Jediny, Ian Johnston, Evan Kindley, Thomas Scalzo, and Andrew Schenker / © 2008 notcoming.com
Comments / 10 total / Submit Comment
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I like the article, I really do. I worked with Nick Ray in the early 70’s doing cinematography and editing on You Can’t Go Home Again and shooting a gazillion b&w stills on the set and around the scene. But you have used a portion of one of my photos at the head of your story without permission or attribution. It is posted on Flickr as part of a set of my photos from that time at http://www.flickr.com/photos/mg-irc/sets/72057594135692080/, but that in no way precludes its copyright protection and or the obligation to seek permission to use. I do hereby grant you that permission, but ask for proper attribution below the photo and a prominent link to the Flickr set from which it was lifted. Nick is taking five among the motion picture equipment detreitus at the Dept. of Cinema, SUNY Binghamton during the filming of We Can’t Go Home Again (AKA Gun Under My Pillow). He’s a little out of focus, but I always felt that was just right for this photo. Thanks!
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Your photos are fantastic Mark — it’s clear you had a very memorable experience with Ray. (I envy that!) We’ve linked your Flickr set at the top of the page, with your name. Many thanks for contacting us, and for your photo permission.
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Very fine piece, though with my psychic hands still sore from burying Manny Farber, I do wish you and everyone else would drop the Godard/Cahiers as definitive American film tastemakers thing once and for all. Semi apropos of something or other—A friend of mine in the 80’s claimed (I’ve been trying for years to track down an actual quote with no success) that Orson Welles once dismissed his own vaunted critical reputation in France by essentially saying that the French had no critical credibility as far as he was concerned because they always mentioned him in the same sentence as Nick Ray! What a dope!
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Thanks for the kudos, Bruce. And duly noted about Cahiers/Godard, though I’d argue that there’s obviously a rather formidable baby in all that bathwater, especially where Ray is concerned.
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I can understand Bruce’s frustration with regard to the frequent appeals to the Cahiers crowd even today among film critics—it is high time that we begin to discuss the work of filmmakers like Ray, Welles, Hawks, et al. from our own perspective in the Twenty-First Century, looking to the historical & social circumstances which influenced the aesthetics of—and themes addressed in—postwar American films.
At the same time, it’s clear that the criticism of Truffaut, Bazin, Godard, Rohmer, etc. is an important part of that historical context, and its impact upon contemporary thinking regarding these films cannot be discarded entirely.
There just needs to be some sort of balance between the two approaches, I think. It is possible to acknowledge the historical importance of Cahiers without continuing to appeal to those critics directly as the sole reason for which anyone might want to take someone like Nick Ray seriously.
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I don’t believe the extensive writings of the Cahiers group are the only reason to take Ray seriously; they are briefly mentioned here in their historical context, as they were the first to collectively take notice while Ray was alive. Certainly Jonathan Rosenbaum has written extensively on Ray, and there was an intriguing piece I recently came across written by Anthony Lane in The New Yorker (‘03 I believe). As this is merely an introduction however, it seems fruitless to weigh in on others’ opinions when eight of Not Coming’s writers — very much alive in the 21st century — are currently expressing their perspectives on these films and their director with this feature.
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Jenny—
All I meant was that critics often feel obliged to retell the entire story of how the Cahiers critics elevated the work of filmmakers like Ray above the plane of mere mass entertainment—which is very much how these films were seen when they were made. Today Ray’s work is widely accepted as worthy of analysis and the Cahiers connection is not as important as it once was. I think that’s more or less what Bruce was getting at too.
I’m glad to see these reviews of Ray’s films, and want to thank everyone responsible for putting so much time and thought into them. Great reading.
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To Bruce Bennett and Jarrod,
The fact of the matter is that during Ray’s lifetime he had a significant and more importantly vocal fan following in Europe. It was a German director by the name of Wim Wenders who came and helped Ray make a film on his deathbed, which became his testament.
And not just France, in England it was critics like V. F. Perkins who wrote major articles on Ray. Then Gavin Lambert, another screenwriter, befriended and fell in love with Ray and worked as a screenwriter on ”Bigger Than Life” and ”Bitter Victory”.
Yes, Ray is a American artist and many Americans have written perceptively on him but you can’t deny the fact that this most American of artists was unhonored in his own country and was better appreciated in Europe in his own lifetime.
So I’m sorry. Any article that discusses Ray in general cannot afford to neglect the Cahiers crowd at all. Unless of course they choose to forego all critical history and rely on personal impressions on Ray.
Samuel Fuller was another American artist honored in Europe rather than at home. Think people can cancel out the cameos he did for many European auteurs as a favour for their championing his works.
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Just a sidenote. While browsing through the schedule on TCM.com I noted that They Live By Night and On Dangerous Ground will be shown on October 30 at 12:30 AM and 2:15 AM (EST), respectively.
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Critic David Thomson writes in detail about 7 films directed by Nicholas Ray in his new book “Have You Seen…?”: “They Live By Night,” “In a Lonely Place,” “The Lusty Men,” “Johnny Guitar,” “Rebel Without a Cause,” “Bigger Than Life,” and “Bitter Victory.”
Credits
Feature by
Cullen Gallagher, Beth Gilligan, Leo Goldsmith, Jenny Jediny, Ian Johnston, Evan Kindley, Thomas Scalzo, and Andrew Schenker
External links
flickr: Nicholas Ray at SUNY Binghamton, 1970–72 by Mark Goldstein
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