Im a Stranger Here Myself (1975)
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Short filmTranscript
00:00♪
00:21Whoooo!
00:23♪
00:44Hold on, T-Double.
00:46♪
00:53♪
01:23♪
01:33Whoooo!
01:35♪
01:43So long, T-Double.
01:44See ya.
01:46Take it easy.
01:47But take it.
01:50What's next?
01:51Now we can start strutting.
01:53One thing you gotta learn, kid.
01:55You gotta look and act like other people.
01:57♪
02:02Hell, when I first got to France,
02:04and read the critiques of René, Godard, Truffaut, Romer,
02:11I didn't know who the hell they were talking about.
02:15But that's the way films should be.
02:17To me, an artist should not moralize.
02:21A person who has the audacity to make a film in the first place
02:28shouldn't ever consciously put his own neuroses on screen.
02:33Most of your heroes are pretty neurotic.
02:38My heroes are no more neurotic than the audience.
02:42Unless you can feel that a hero is just as fucked up as you are,
02:47and that you would make the same mistakes that he would make,
02:52you can have no satisfaction when he does commit a heroic act.
02:59Because then you can say,
03:00hell, I could have done that too.
03:04And that's the obligation of the filmmaker, of the theater worker,
03:08to give a heightened sense of experience to the people
03:12who pay to come to see his work.
03:16♪
03:23From 1947 to 1962,
03:25Nicholas Ray directed some of the most richly personal work in American cinema.
03:30Yet, in 1971, when he accepted a teaching post
03:33at Harper College in Binghamton, New York,
03:35he had not completed a film in nearly a decade.
03:38At Binghamton, Ray trained his students to be a working production unit,
03:42teaching them filmmaking by shooting a feature film
03:45as a collaborative creative effort under his supervision.
03:49Grow, not grow, let the virgin go, but become us.
03:53You've just described it.
03:56All right, all right.
03:57All right, places, please. Places.
04:00Scene one, age take one.
04:03Action.
04:06Born in 1911,
04:08Nicholas Ray left his hometown of La Crosse, Wisconsin at 16
04:12to study under Frank Lloyd Wright.
04:15After a brief university career,
04:17Ray emigrated to New York City at the height of the Depression.
04:20There he became involved in the lively experimental theater of the 30s,
04:24working as an actor with such politically progressive groups
04:27as the Workers' Theater and the Federal Theater Project,
04:30which included the Living Newspaper.
04:33It was there that Ray learned the improvisational methods
04:36that he would employ in Hollywood
04:38and would still be using with his students in Binghamton
04:40more than 30 years later.
04:43It began on East 12th Street, not a few blocks from here.
04:50Led to my association with Kazan and Hausman,
04:54from whom I learned more than any other two people in the world.
05:08I worked in a workers' theater.
05:13We graduated to Broadway,
05:16and somehow or other one day Kazan said,
05:19Come on, you've been spending enough time in radio, theater, television.
05:25I'm going out to Hollywood to make my first film.
05:30Come on along and help me.
05:36Hausman, same thing.
05:38I suppose I've collaborated with Hausman on more things
05:41than anybody else I've ever worked with.
05:45Nick had come to New York during the depths of the Depression
05:49when life was very strange, sort of rather desperate,
05:54and at the same time extremely hopeful,
06:00and there was almost no limit to the dreams one could have
06:04because everything was so terrible that everything was dreams.
06:07Nick was himself a very vulnerable, very sensitive,
06:13almost too sensitive person in some ways,
06:16and in some ways very aggressive and assertive,
06:20in other ways extremely reticent and shy,
06:23and that combination is very good for a director with actors.
06:29Particularly his real talent lay in what he could do
06:32with very young and tender and sensitive and insecure people
06:37like Cathy O'Donnell, Farley Granger.
06:44Hello, hello.
06:49Do you do the marrying?
06:50That's my business.
06:51I have a $30 wedding which gives a complete recording
06:53of the ceremony on records.
06:55I have a $20 wedding...
06:56Will you just marry us?
06:57That'll be $20.
06:59Tilly, Herman?
07:00Who are they?
07:01My sister and her husband. Witnesses.
07:03We have to have them?
07:04Oh, yes, of course.
07:05We have to have them.
07:06We have to have them.
07:07We have to have them.
07:08We have to have them.
07:09We have to have them.
07:10We have to have them.
07:11We have to have them.
07:12We have to have them.
07:13Oh, yes.
07:14First you've got to sign your names.
07:17Over here.
07:24If you'll just sign the register.
07:42And?
07:43Rent you a ring for a dollar or sell you one for five.
07:48I'll buy one.
07:50And?
07:51This one will do it.
08:13By virtue of the power vested in me,
08:15I hereby perform this wedding ceremony.
08:18Do you, Catherine, take this man, Arthur,
08:20as your lawful wedded husband,
08:21to love, honor, and cherish henceforth?
08:23I do.
08:24Do you, Arthur, take this woman, Catherine,
08:26as your lawful wedded wife,
08:27to love, honor, and cherish henceforth?
08:29I do.
08:30Well, put the ring on her finger.
08:32I do.
08:33I do.
08:34I do.
08:35I do.
08:36I do.
08:37I do.
08:38I do.
08:39I do.
08:40I do.
08:41Well, put the ring on her finger.
08:46Now, by virtue of the power vested in me,
08:49I now pronounce you husband and wife.
08:56Here, tip him each a dollar.
09:05Wish all the health, happiness, and wealth in the world.
09:09Herr Mann, you've got a cold.
09:12I'm sorry, I have.
09:15That'll be $20 plus five for the ring.
09:24You don't think much of my way of marrying people, do you?
09:27I sure don't.
09:28Well, me neither.
09:29But I'm giving folks what they want.
09:31My way of thinking, folks ought to have what they want.
09:34As long as they can pay for it.
09:36Nick has always made almost all his best pictures, actually,
09:40have been about people whom society was oppressing
09:44and society was crushing,
09:46and who were almost doomed to be defeated by society.
09:50Well, Nick himself is not altogether outside that category.
09:55In 1962, having become one of the highest paid American directors,
10:00Nicholas Ray dropped out of the film industry.
10:03Plagued by personal problems
10:05and discouraged by the compromises of commercial movie making.
10:08For Ray, the 60s were a long, murky period
10:12marred by a stream of unrealized projects and by failing health.
10:16In 1969, he returned to the United States after a 10-year absence
10:21to make a film about the Chicago Conspiracy Trial.
10:25What was it that captured your attention with the Conspiracy Trial?
10:29Well, it was the greatest circus of bigotry I'd ever heard.
10:34Directed against young people who were the,
10:39now the 32 and 33-year-old equivalents of James Dean,
10:44who wrote pamphlets that were of such sophomoric and collegiate humor,
10:52like the stuff you write before homecoming games,
10:55which were taken seriously by the court.
10:59One day Lee Weiner came to me and asked if I were a friend of Groucho Marx's,
11:06and I said, yes.
11:09He said, do you suppose we could get Groucho as an expert witness for us?
11:17And so we'll try.
11:20And he says, somebody has to explain our sense of humor.
11:26And he's the only man in the United States that we know of who can explain our sense of humor.
11:34And to see Dave Dellinger, the oldest of the group,
11:39and a Quaker pacifist,
11:45be the only one to put his body in front of Bobby Seale
11:51to protect him from the blows of the police,
11:54there's so many things.
11:59I'll make it someday.
12:02After we finish this one, maybe.
12:04And the next one.
12:09Hey, you bums, look at them.
12:12Hey, look at that bunch of, look at those magnificent bastards in there.
12:17Hey, get us out of those cats in there.
12:19Well, I was talking to Howard Hughes.
12:23Oh, get in the window, you schmuck.
12:25Hey, get in the window.
12:34Nick came and virtually changed the whole cinema department, the whole idea of filmmaking.
12:39And I think he has a huge amount of insight into everybody he's known for a while.
12:46And he uses, he employs those insights for characters in a film, even.
12:57He's a con artist.
12:59And he knows how to manipulate people, if that's an acceptable word.
13:04But that's part of the talent of a director.
13:08He's always wanted to be cherished by young people.
13:13And he scorns his own generation, which has rejected him, apparently.
13:19And he just likes working with young people.
13:22As far as his role in the film, which is an essential part of the whole film.
13:29He's, as a character, I guess he's something like the parole officer in Rebel.
13:35Always caring for young people.
13:39He's been like a father to us and a counselor and a teacher at the same time.
13:46Ray's unconventional teaching methods demanded intensive involvement from his students,
13:51leading them to adopt a communal living arrangement
13:54that brought down continual harassment from conservative university authorities.
13:58Eventually, the group was forced to move to a farm just outside of town.
14:01Gradually, under Ray's direction, teacher and students alike
14:05attempted to develop an original approach to filmmaking
14:08that would express in a new way the process of self-discovery
14:12that has always been one of Nick Ray's central themes.
14:15Look, I like this quality on here better than I like the correction one.
14:21Which one is that?
14:23The overexposed one.
14:25Why do you like that one better?
14:27Because I like it better.
14:30Look, this is dull.
14:33This is one of the most aesthetic characters in the world.
14:36Look, I know what shot it is.
14:38I know what shot it is.
14:39But this is dull as hell, you know?
14:43How did Bogart take to playing the part of the writer in In a Lonely Place,
14:48which is rather a departure for him?
14:50Well, I had taken the gun away from his hand for the first time in Knock on Any Door.
14:58And the second time, he was ready for it.
15:07A little bit more ready for it.
15:11And he obviously loved it.
15:14It's one of his favorite films.
15:18But it was a very personal story.
15:22A very personal story.
15:24The last part of it, I had written with Andrew Soult.
15:31And Bundy and Soult had headed east.
15:39In the meantime, I had separated from my wife, Gloria Graham,
15:44who was playing opposite Bogie.
15:48And if I had let the producer, Bobby Lord, or Bogie know that,
15:54they would have gone crazy, or Harry Cohn would have gone crazy.
15:57And so I said, well, look, I'm having trouble with the third act.
16:02Make an apartment for me out of a couple dressing rooms.
16:07Because I don't want to drive to Malibu every night.
16:11And I want to get down on stage and work at night, which I did.
16:19And Gloria behaved beautifully.
16:21Nobody knew that we were separated.
16:24And I just couldn't believe the ending that Bundy and I had written.
16:32I shot it because it was my obligation to do it.
16:35Then I kicked everybody off stage except Bogart, Art Smith, and Gloria.
16:41And we improvised the ending as it is now.
16:45The original ending we had written so that it was all tied up into a very neat package.
16:51And Frank Lovejoy coming in and arresting him as he was writing the last lines, having killed Gloria.
16:58And I thought, shit, I can't do it. I just can't do it.
17:03Romances don't have to end that way.
17:06Marriages don't have to end that way.
17:08They don't have to end in violence, for Christ's sake, you know.
17:13And let the audience find out and make up its own mind about what's going to happen to Bogie.
17:21When he goes outside of the apartment area, which was the first apartment I lived in in Hollywood, by the way.
17:29This was a very personal film.
17:36Bogart plays a neurotic screenwriter with a violent temper who is unjustly suspected of murder.
17:42The police investigation places an intolerable strain on his relationship with Gloria Graham.
17:47Right there. The moment we see them together and talking, right after my rap for the detective.
17:54Working within the studio system, Ray, like other directors, often had to relinquish control of a picture at the vital stage of editing.
18:06We mix the speaker over this?
18:08Right.
18:16There we go.
18:23Which take is this?
18:24This is like take four or something.
18:26Listen to take six.
18:27Six?
18:28Yes, there is one.
18:29Right there.
18:31And also, I want to put back in, because in seeing the assembly in Boston,
18:40it struck me that we have no resolution to this at all, and we must have that jump of listening into Doug's arms.
18:52Why don't you do the tape over there?
18:57How did you approach your cutting in Hollywood?
19:00I would cut every night after shooting.
19:02As you went.
19:04I usually have a rough cut of the film within a week after I finish.
19:10But this is different. This is a method of teaching.
19:20That we have come out with a film is, we hope, a very lucky accident.
19:27Ah.
19:34Now crescendo, right from here.
19:37Before that.
19:38This part comes in before that.
19:40Now, let's listen to another take, if you can.
19:43Okay.
19:44Because I have one which is almost on the nose.
19:47When do you want the crescendo?
19:48The crescendo begins while we're on their backs.
19:50Oh, while we're on their backs.
19:52Right, right there.
19:53Right, so if I cut two bars, I think that would work.
19:55No, the two bars will bring you into the la-la-la-la.
19:58How have you organized your students' work on this production?
20:02Following a rotation system with somebody being on one sequence,
20:06somebody else being on another sequence.
20:09And finding that a person who may be emotionally involved in one sequence
20:19may not be doing as good an editing job as somebody else might do.
20:23Take him off, put him on to something else.
20:27Do you find you, can you get a consistent rhythm to the picture with those?
20:31That's my final job.
20:33Everything that goes through here now goes through me.
20:40Finally, there can only be me.
20:43Finally, there must be the director.
20:46Whenever you're ready, Luke.
20:47Yeah, okay.
20:49Turn up the lights, please.
20:50When the young French critics first began to develop the hauteur theory,
20:53the concept of the director as the central creative force in the making of a film
20:57was a new one.
20:58No other American director attracted more sustained enthusiasm
21:02from François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, and their colleagues
21:05than Nicolas Ray.
21:07I think what attracted us was that there was something European
21:12in this man from Hollywood.
21:14And what was European was perhaps the fragility,
21:18the vulnerability of the main characters.
21:21Although he sometimes shot with stars like John Wayne or Fred Bogart,
21:25and these male characters were not macho or Sterling Gaiden,
21:30there was this great sensitivity,
21:33and especially in the treatment, I must say, of sentimental stories,
21:38which gave an impression of very great reality.
21:41At a time when Hollywood cinema was not easily personal or autobiographical,
21:46we always had the impression that the love stories in Nicolas Ray's films
21:50were true stories.
21:58I said once, and I'm ready to say it again today in front of this camera,
22:01I said once that a film like Johnny Guitar
22:04had more importance in my life than in Nicolas Ray's.
22:07That is, it is a film for which I became passionate as soon as I saw it.
22:11But I was critical when I saw it.
22:12I wrote about it, and I wrote several articles about it.
22:15And that's how we started a correspondence with Nicolas Ray.
22:19But I was talking about Johnny Guitar,
22:21which is a film that has a great importance in my life.
22:24I don't know why, because I found it very strong, very deep,
22:28about men-women relationships.
22:31And I think it's the only film
22:34in which I saw a theme that is very interesting
22:38in a certain stage of romantic relationships,
22:40which is bitterness.
22:41The bitterness of people who loved each other,
22:43who don't love each other anymore, and who see each other again.
22:45And I don't think any film treated that as well as Johnny Guitar.
23:14What I feel is that I want to give.
23:19Right, I know.
23:20It's very difficult right now.
23:35Because when you hand her the blankets,
23:39you're the one who wanted to come in and warm Tom originally, as you did.
23:44Right?
23:45Right.
23:46And so at this moment...
23:48The company would work when it could,
23:50from noon throughout the night until dawn in bitter cold,
23:53functioning on a few hours sleep snatched between takes.
23:59Action!
24:05I don't think that I could have gotten him,
24:07or I could ever get such a good acting teacher.
24:09I think he's the greatest teacher of acting in the world.
24:13I'm really excited by that.
24:15And the reason that I still work on the film,
24:18because I've wanted to leave, you know, now for...
24:21since May,
24:24is because this relationship that I have with Nick
24:29is still very exciting.
24:31The energy is still very high.
24:33You don't even take time with me anymore.
24:35Play your part or else get your ass off the set.
24:38My concentration is on him in this angle,
24:40and I don't want your personal hostility
24:44or whatever the hell you are feeling
24:47to take a part in the film.
24:49At this point, not at all.
24:52Not at all, at all, at all, Leslie.
25:04My personal hostility is not involved in this film.
25:07It's not involved when I walk from here to there.
25:10So I don't know what you're talking about.
25:13Well, then, honey, you haven't learned anything about acting.
25:17If that's, you know, your judgment,
25:20fine, keep it.
25:24But I remain immune to it.
25:26If I know what I know.
25:28You sure know your immunities, you know.
25:31Yes.
25:33I will not try to convince you.
25:37I will not try to convince you.
25:40All you can do is just cut ass out.
25:47If I waited for you four hours tonight,
25:49that meant that I didn't wait for you.
25:51You didn't wait for me for four hours.
25:53I dare fucking to.
25:54I beg your pardon.
25:56I beg your pardon.
26:01Tell me when you waited for four hours for me.
26:03From 8.15 till 12.
26:058.15 you called.
26:07That's right.
26:08Who did you talk to?
26:10Judy.
26:14So how did you wait for me?
26:16Because she's part of the crew.
26:18I thought there's some kind of communication.
26:21Mr. McCain.
26:23We waited for you, for Christ's sake.
26:25Well, how was I going to get over here?
26:27Somebody was going to come after you when you called.
26:29But they didn't.
26:30And I called and no one came.
26:32You were going on to campus.
26:33I was not.
26:34You said, don't go on campus.
26:36I did not go on campus.
26:37Because then it would take even an hour.
26:39You're talking bullshit.
26:40I am not.
26:41You're talking petty bullshit.
26:43I am not.
26:44You're talking petty bullshit.
26:46I am not.
26:47You're talking petty bullshit.
26:49I am not.
26:50For us, it's a lot of time.
26:52You want to talk about the part, I'll talk about the part.
26:55I will not talk about petty bullshit.
26:57It's not petty bullshit.
26:58It's a matter of time.
26:59That's all.
27:01And if time is of the essence in this film,
27:03then it's not petty.
27:16Do you have any questions about this?
27:18No, I just walked from there to there.
27:32Play the actual scene for what it is.
27:36All right.
27:37How you feel.
27:38All right.
27:39All right.
27:40Give it a reluctance.
27:45Let her walk.
27:46I don't want to.
27:47I don't want to feel any kind of reluctance at all.
27:51You should.
27:54It's for the scene.
27:56Because you want to do that thing for him.
28:00Do it.
28:01To show him.
28:03So it's with reluctance you give them to her.
28:06And that is, this is the only moment of heroic action in this film.
28:13All right.
28:14Ready for picture, please.
28:17Ready.
28:19That's okay.
28:20Roll them.
28:22Camera on.
28:24Action.
28:32All right.
28:33Now.
28:34Turn that way again.
28:40Cut.
28:41Cut.
28:47Cut.
28:49Sorry.
28:51All right.
28:57I like this very much.
28:58I just want to see the other kind of graciousness coming through.
29:08I want to extend
29:11extend the moment a little longer.
29:15Because it may
29:17take a moment
29:19or
29:21just a second in the thought.
29:26The kind of miracle in film where
29:30you can extend that thought into
29:3330 seconds, 40 seconds.
29:37Now we want to extend it to 8 seconds.
29:41All right.
29:49The move was good.
29:52All right.
29:58So I think it's the move first.
30:02Okay, darling, you
30:05you do it.
30:11Leslie.
30:12Ah.
30:14Wonderful.
30:15Thanks.
30:17I try not to direct them until just before the scene,
30:20which is part of what the hassle was about last night.
30:24And but when the person has the stink of the gallows about her,
30:30how
30:32then you
30:34then you're bound to run into
30:37a
30:39a
30:41the same thing that you might run into with a Tallulah Bankhead.
30:45All right.
30:50Well, hell, I've only had two fights with actors in my life.
30:53Really.
30:55And you use
30:57what is of their essence at the moment.
31:03Because that is their easiest reference point.
31:06And you have to be aware of that and how to agitate it.
31:09How to
31:11make it work for you in the scene.
31:14What their immediate concern is.
31:17He showed me about a year ago little bits of the Binghamton film
31:21and some of them were
31:22I couldn't tell what the whole film was like at all.
31:25There wasn't enough of it.
31:26But I saw a couple of sequences that were quite amazing
31:30and really reminded me of Nick's
31:34kind of
31:36of talent which he was showing in the days when he was making
31:38Rebel Without A Cause
31:39and those extremely
31:42passionate and vital pictures about the young.
31:46How did you get the part in Rebel?
31:48Well, Nick made a lot of tests
31:52of different girls.
31:53I think there were about 50 of us
31:55and it sort of narrowed down.
31:56There were 50 to begin with
31:58and the second day it was down to 10
31:59and the third day I think it was down to
32:02five or six.
32:03But the big problem was
32:05that I had really up to that point only played children
32:08and although I was 15
32:10the last thing I did was in Pigtails or something
32:12and so I was finding it difficult to convince
32:15and Nick was also finding it difficult to convince the studio
32:17that I was out of Pigtails.
32:19So one day I came on an interview with a boyfriend
32:22who had a cut on his face
32:24and Nick said where did he get that?
32:27And I said drag racing.
32:29And then shortly afterward
32:31I was actually in a bad car accident
32:34with Dennis Hopper
32:35in which Dennis was driving too fast
32:37and we were all thrown from the car
32:38and brought to the hospital.
32:40And I was sort of semi-conscious
32:43and the police were called
32:45and they were asking me my parents' phone number
32:48and I kept saying it's Nick Ray.
32:50Call Nick Ray and the number is
32:52so forth and so forth
32:53the number of the Chateau Marmont
32:54and I just kept repeating that
32:56and so that's who they did call
32:58and Nick sent his doctor down to the hospital
33:00and then he came down
33:02and I said Nick they called me
33:03a goddamn juvenile delinquent
33:05now do I get the part?
33:06And you got it.
33:07And I got it.
33:08No director that I'd ever worked with
33:10had ever improvised
33:13and Nick's bungalow at the Chateau Marmont
33:16where he lived
33:18was the
33:21the set was built from that
33:22so that when we rehearsed
33:23we really rehearsed as though in a set
33:26and we improvised most of the scenes.
33:28Could you tell us something about
33:31the relationship between Nick Ray and Jimmy Dean?
33:36Well
33:37they obviously had become very close
33:39because before the film started
33:40they sort of hung around together
33:42and as you mentioned went to New York
33:44and so that Jimmy trusted Nick a great deal
33:47and I think Nick
33:49was very fatherly towards Jimmy
33:52I mean he was to Sal and to myself as well
33:57but I think Nick just absolutely understood Jimmy
33:59they were just completely in tune in personality
34:01I guess maybe Jimmy reminded Nick of himself
34:04a great deal
34:05so that there was never any friction
34:07as there was between Jimmy and
34:09other directors that he worked with
34:11and it was just a wonderful blend
34:14and Nick brought out this feeling of trust in Jimmy
34:18But working with Jimmy was
34:25like a real
34:26real joy
34:29but I had the advantage of his having worked with Kazan
34:36and
34:38where he at least had a
34:41a method of beginning
34:45I developed the method a little bit more
34:48because Kazan and I had matriculated
34:50about the same time
34:53in the theater and he had
34:56taught me a lot
34:57I think I'm
34:59I think the nicest thing Gadge ever said to me was
35:03how did you get that spontaneous performance out of Jimmy
35:08but method changes with
35:10damn near every actor
35:12and I honored his imagination
35:14more than almost anything else
35:16Dean was the only one in the cast
35:18who had any real comprehension of
35:20of method or of the
35:22school of theater in which I had grown up
35:26and
35:32you couldn't use the word improvise
35:34if you used the word improvise with
35:36people like Andoran
35:39or
35:40or Jim Backus
35:42or Virginia Brissac
35:46they'd say oh this
35:47oh this artsy school
35:49hmm
35:51and
35:52and
35:55so you
35:56I'd use old vaudevillian terms
35:58the director has to be able to work with
36:00everybody from every
36:03every school, you know
36:05no cast is ever made up of
36:08really the same people, the same background
36:12so you have to
36:14use all the techniques you've ever learned
36:16whether it's that
36:18what you learned from a vaudevillian
36:20or from an old leading man like Fuller Mellish
36:22who came over with Henry Irving
36:24and Minnie Madden Fisk
36:26or
36:28burlesque people like Red Buttons
36:30or
36:32or Phil Silvers
36:34or
36:39or from miners or shrimp fishermen
36:41or
36:48or your own peers
36:50as you grow up in the theater
36:52it's a
36:54Cary Grant for instance is a
36:58is a fellow like
37:00Duke Ellington has in
37:02his trunk
37:04so many tunes
37:06well Cary Grant has
37:08so many notes of sunsets
37:10so many jokes
37:12so many things that he's collected
37:14and remained collecting every single
37:16year of his life, you know
37:18that
37:20his memory, his affective memory
37:22is always implemented
37:24by
37:26an easy reference
37:28you know
37:30he has them in the trunk, he doesn't have to refer to them
37:32because the compartments of the brain have them
37:34but having written them down
37:36having noted them, having taken the
37:38the
37:42visual memory of
37:44like that tree between those two
37:46little shacks there
37:48being something
37:50which you
37:52might remember in the scene
37:54say why don't we use that
37:58After Rebel Without a Cause
38:00Nicholas Ray continued to produce some
38:02extraordinary work
38:04although he was one of Hollywood's most respected
38:06directors, Ray still
38:08suffered studio interference that bodilized
38:10his conception on several films
38:12and he began to work abroad
38:14thereafter he drifted from one project
38:16to another through the Byzantine complications
38:18of independent production and multinational
38:20financing
38:22compromises were still required
38:24but Ray did enjoy a measure of autonomy
38:26beyond that generally accorded him in Hollywood
38:28then in
38:301960 he was drawn
38:32into the world of blockbuster spectacles
38:34although he brought his immense visual
38:36talent and some original
38:38conceptions to the rather inflated material
38:40Nicholas Ray seemed glaringly
38:42out of place overseeing
38:44the massive technology and impersonal
38:46logistics of a King of
38:48Kings or a 55
38:50Days at Peking
38:52Why did he get discouraged?
38:54This is the terrible evil
38:56I think of the Hollywood system
38:58I think you end up
39:00because you do get screwed
39:02occasionally by studios
39:04you do get frustrated
39:06they do mess up your work
39:08and make it more difficult for you to work
39:10or they did in those days when the studios really existed
39:12they don't really exist anymore
39:14in that sense
39:16I think Nick was probably much
39:18more vulnerable than other people
39:20everybody has this but whereas
39:22a man like Kazan
39:24who's tough as nails was able to
39:26take it in stride
39:28I think Nick finally was
39:30partially destroyed by it and became
39:32almost perverse
39:34in his resistance
39:36in his
39:38almost being prepared to be screwed
39:40before anticipating
39:42the screwing before they actually
39:44occurred. Now that is not rare
39:46that happens to many
39:48directors and many people who work in the
39:50business. It affected Nick more than
39:52other people
39:54Most film courses
39:56or film classes
39:58of
40:00concentrate
40:02on
40:04you know
40:06getting rid of the responsibilities
40:08of the students as quickly as possible
40:10by putting them off in corners and shooting
40:128mm films which they can
40:14do all by themselves
40:16and
40:18present
40:20for a senior thesis
40:22therefore the emphasis is on
40:24kind of static camera
40:26with a
40:30with cute ideas
40:32or masturbatory ideas
40:34or date making ideas
40:36or anything
40:38except the
40:40relationship with other human beings
40:42and
40:44film is a collective art
40:46it's an eclectic art, it's a collective art
40:48and
40:52and it's
40:54of
40:56by its own nature become the most
40:58communicative art that we have in the world
41:02and the only two great ambassadors
41:04I've ever had from the United States
41:06have been jazz and film
41:08and
41:10that doesn't come from sitting off in a corner
41:22For all his hardships, Nicholas Ray
41:24remains both intransigent and optimistic
41:26facing an uncertain future
41:28determined to make films
41:30in his own way
41:32Hence, each project he undertakes
41:34might be likened to the blind run in
41:36Rebel Without a Cause as a slightly
41:38mad test of courage
41:40that leads him up to and perhaps over the edge
41:42of disaster
41:44While Ray did find in Binghamton momentarily
41:46a kind of community and collective endeavor
41:48for which he had long been searching
41:50in the end, Nick Ray knows
41:52that he must drive his blind run alone
41:54as he has often remarked
41:56the working title of every film he has ever
41:58made has been
42:00The low camera on this
42:16It might be good emotionally
42:18for you to take the low camera
42:26She's putting the blankets on Tom
42:30Huh?
42:32Yeah, go ahead
42:34Did you tip up to her?
42:36What do you mean? I take a camera
42:38that's the low camera
42:40as the blankets come on
42:42to her
42:44Usually it's 75 here
42:46and
42:48you tip up into it
42:50I think
42:52it's emotionally a good thing
42:54Alright, okay
42:57Footage please
42:59Um, 155
43:01It looks very beautiful to me
43:05That's a wrap
43:26Thank you