Title: The Films of Nicholas Ray: The Poet of Nightfall
Abstract: Geoff Andrew. The Films of Nicholas Ray: The Poet of nightfall. BFI Publishing, 2004. 193 pages; $70.00. Premature Independent If cinema no longer existed, Nicholas Ray alone gives impression of being capable of reinventing it, and what is more, of wanting to. When Jean-Luc Godard wrote those words in Cahiers du Cinema of February 1957, he was expressing intense enthusiasm that he and his fellow cineastes felt for director of They Live by Night and Rebel Without a Cause. For average viewer, however, excitement seems misplaced. After all, Ray's misses are as numerous as his hits; for every In a Lonely Place or The Lusty Men, there is a dull epic like King of Kings, or a deranged eccentricity such as Johnny Guitar. It comes as no surprise, then, to learn that this book is one of only two studies of Ray in English (the other is a biography, translated from German). Perhaps, in this case, Noel Coward was right when he claimed that there is always something fishy about French. Certainly, that was your reviewer's attitude before he began Geoff Andrew's film-by-film critical study, updated from its first publication in 1991. After a few pages, though, it became apparent that this snootiness was plain wrong. For Ray is a very special case in gallery of auteurs; his significance lies not so much in his individual films or his cumulative as in his overall intent. As book takes each work in turn, reader begins to see that these twenty-three films are pieces in a mosaic. Until you have seen every single one, as Andrew has, it is impossible to discern pattern. The reason why this grand design is so hard to detect is because Ray's achievement is less important than his context. As Andrew implies throughout, director was a kind of premature independent, even new Hollywood film maker; unfortunately, he was trapped inside studio system (mainly at RKO, where he laboured for seven years), so his career was an endless battle with obtuse producers, studio muddle and compromise. The problem was made worse by fact that, in Forties and Fifties, few viewers in United States wanted films that mirrored their anxieties, and, as Andrew demonstrates, Ray's working life was dedicated to uncovering loneliness, alienation and destructive hypocrisy that lurked beneath post-war dream. Therefore, if so much of his work falls short of what critics like to call full achievement, then it may be because America muffled him. Only Europeans like Godard and Francois Truffaut could hear his personal music and understand its wider implications for cinema. Andrew does not say any of this, but it is inherent in everything he writes. Ray's unique vision is encapsulated in subtitle, the poet of nightfall, a phrase of Truffaut's. On one level, stands for difficult and complex subject matter, for all director's haunted male outsiders, who struggle with their inner darkness, rebel against an oppressive society, and who wander through America in search of redemptive light. On another level, nightfall suggests Ray's genius at telling a story wholly in terms of picture (along with sound and editing). Time and again, Andrew shows this specifically film eloquence, for example in use of space. …
Publication Year: 2005
Publication Date: 2005-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Access and Citation
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot