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00:00♪
00:21Whoooooo!
00:23♪
00:44Hold on, T-Double.
00:46♪
01:15♪
01:34Whoooooo!
01:36♪
01:43So long, T-Double.
01:44See ya.
01:46Take it easy.
01:47But take it.
01:51What's next?
01:51Now we can start strutting.
01:54One thing you gotta learn, kid.
01:55You gotta look and act like other people.
02:02Hell, when I first got to France
02:04and read the critiques of René, Godard, Truffaut,
02:10Romer,
02:12I didn't know who the hell they were talking about.
02:16But that's the way films should be.
02:18An 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.
02:33Well, most 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,
03:06of the theater worker,
03:08to give a heightened sense of experience to the people who pay to come to see his work.
03:23From 1947 to 1962,
03:26Nicholas Ray directed some of the most richly personal work in American cinema.
03:30Yet in 1971,
03:32when he accepted a teaching post at Harper College in Binghamton, New York,
03:36he had not completed a film in nearly a decade.
03:39At Binghamton, Ray trained his students to be a working production unit,
03:43teaching them filmmaking by shooting a feature film
03:45as a collaborative creative effort under his supervision.
03:50Grow, not grow, let the virgin go, but become us.
03:53You've just described it.
03:58All right, places, please.
03:59Places.
04:01Scene one, age take one.
04:03Action.
04:06Born in 1911,
04:09Nicholas Ray left his hometown of La Crosse, Wisconsin at 16
04:13to study under Frank Lloyd Wright.
04:15After a brief university career,
04:17Ray emigrated to New York City at the height of the Depression.
04:21There he became involved in the lively experimental theater of the 30s,
04:25working as an actor with such politically progressive groups
04:28as the Workers' Theater and the Federal Theater Project,
04:30which included the Living Newspaper.
04:33It was there that Ray learned the improvisational methods
04:35that he would employ in Hollywood
04:37and would still be using with his students in Binghamton
04:39more than 30 years later.
04:43It began on East 12th Street, not a few blocks from here.
04:49Led to my association with Kazan and Hausman,
04:54from whom I learned more than any other two people in the world.
04:58I worked in a workers' theater.
05:04We graduated to Broadway.
05:08And somehow or other, one day, Kazan said,
05:10come on, you've been spending enough time in radio, theater, television.
05:16I'm going out to Hollywood to make a film.
05:19And I said, well, I'm going to make a film.
05:21And he said, well, I'm going to make a film.
05:23And I said, well, I'm going to make a film.
05:24And he said, well, I'm going to make a film.
05:26And I said, well, I'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, so 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.
06:06Nick was himself a very vulnerable, very sensitive,
06:13almost too sensitive person in some ways.
06:17And in some ways, very aggressive and assertive.
06:20In other ways, extremely reticent and shy.
06:24And that combination is very good for a director with actors.
06:29Particularly, his real talent lay in what he could do
06:33with very young and tender and sensitive and insecure people
06:37like Kathy O'Donnell, Farley Granger.
06:40Hello, hello.
06:57Do you do the marrying?
06:58That's my business.
06:59I have a $30 wedding which gives a complete recording
07:02of the ceremony on records.
07:03I have a $20 wedding.
07:04Will you just marry us?
07:05That'll be $20.
07:07Tilly, Herman.
07:08Who are they?
07:09Her sister and her husband.
07:11Witnesses.
07:12We have to have them?
07:13Oh, yeah.
07:14First, you gotta sign your names over here.
07:24If you'll just sign the register.
07:39And?
07:48I'll rent you a ring for a dollar or sell you one for five.
07:53I'll buy one.
07:55And this one will do it.
08:09By virtue of the power vested in me,
08:26I hereby perform this wedding ceremony.
08:29Do you, Catherine, take this man, Arthur, as your lawful wedded husband
08:32to love, honor, and cherish henceforth?
08:34I do.
08:35Do you, Arthur, take this woman, Catherine, as your lawful wedded wife
08:38to love, honor, and cherish henceforth?
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 got a cold.
09:12I'm sorry.
09:13I 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
09:45and society was crushing,
09:47and who were almost doomed to be defeated by society.
09:51Well, Nick himself is not altogether outside that category.
09:56In 1962, having become one of the highest paid American directors,
10:01Nicholas 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,
10:45who wrote pamphlets that were of such sophomoric and collegiate humor,
10:52like the stuff you write before homecoming games,
10:56which 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.
11:25And he's the only man in the United States that we know of who can explain our sense of humor.
11:33And to see Dave Dellinger, the oldest of the group,
11:38and a Quaker pacifist, be the only one to put his body in front of Bobby Seale
11:50to protect him from the blows of the police.
11:52There's so many things.
11:57I'll make it someday.
12:00After we finish this one, maybe.
12:02And the next one.
12:08Hey, you bums, look at them.
12:11Hey, look at that bunch of, look at those magnificent bastards in there.
12:15Hey, get a shot of those cats in there.
12:17Well, I was talking to Howard Hughes.
12:20I was talking to Howard Hughes.
12:23Oh, get in the window, you schmuck.
12:25Hey, get in the window.
12:34Nick came in and virtually changed the whole cinema department, the whole idea of filmmaking.
12:40And 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.
12:58He's a con artist, and 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.
13:12And 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, and he's been like a father to us.
13:41And a counselor, and a teacher at the same time.
13:47Ray's unconventional teaching methods demanded intensive involvement from his students,
13:52leading 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.
14:02Gradually, 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.
14:38How did Bogart take to playing the part of the writer in In a Lonely Place,
14:48which is rather a departure for him?
14:51Well, I had taken the gun away from his hand for the first time in Knock on Any Door.
14:56And the second time, he was ready for it, a little bit more ready for it.
15:11And he obviously loved it, it's one of his favorite films.
15:18But it was a very personal story.
15:23A very personal story.
15:25The last part of it, I had written with Andrew Soult,
15:32and Bundy had, Soult had headed east.
15:40In the meantime, I had separated from my wife, Gloria Graham,
15:45who was playing opposite Bogie.
15:48And if I had let the producer, Bobby Lord, or Bogie know that,
15:54you know, they would have gone crazy, or Harry Cohn would have gone crazy.
15:58And so I said, well, look, I'm having trouble with the third act.
16:03Make an apartment for me out of a couple dressing rooms,
16:07because I don't want to drive to Malibu every night.
16:12And I want to get down and get on stage and work at night, which I did.
16:20And Gloria behaved beautifully.
16:21Nobody knew that we were separated.
16:23And 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.
16:51Frank 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.
17:02I 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
17:17what's going to happen to Bogie when he goes outside of the apartment area,
17:25which was the first apartment I lived in in Hollywood, by the way.
17:29This is a very personal film.
17:36Bogart plays a neurotic screenwriter with a violent temper
17:39who 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,
17:52right after my rap for the detective.
17:56Working within the studio system, Ray, like other directors,
18:00often had to relinquish control of a picture at the vital stage of editing.
18:04Do we mix the speaker over this?
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.
18:30And also, I want to put back in, because in seeing the assembly in Boston,
18:41it struck me that we have no resolution to this at all,
18:45and we must have that jump of Leslie into Doug's arms.
18:51Why don't you do the tape?
18:52No.
18:52Before?
18:53Right.
18:56How did you approach your cutting in Hollywood?
19:00But I would cut every night after shooting.
19:02As you want.
19:04I'll usually have a rough cut of the film within a week after I finish.
19:12But this is different.
19:18This is a method of teaching.
19:20That we've come out with a film is, we hope, a very lucky accident.
19:30Now, crescendo, right from here.
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.
19:51Oh, while we're on their backs.
19:52Right, right.
19:53So if I cut two bars, I think that will work.
19:56No, the two bars will bring you into the la la la la.
19:59How have you organized your students' work on this production?
20:02Following a rotation system with somebody being on one sequence,
20:07somebody else being on another sequence.
20:10And 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 onto something else.
20:26Do you find, can you get a consistent rhythm to the picture with those?
20:29That's my final job.
20:32Everything that goes through here now goes through me.
20:39Finally, there can only be me.
20:42Finally, there must be the director.
20:45Whenever you're ready, Luke.
20:46Yeah, okay, at 16, you're ready.
20:48Turn up the lights, please.
20:49When the young French critics first began to develop the haute tour theory,
20:53the concept of the director as the central creative force in the making of a film was a new one.
20:59No other American director attracted more sustained enthusiasm
21:03from François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, and their colleagues than Nicolas Ray.
21:53I 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 had more importance in my life than in Nicolas Ray's.
22:07That is to say, it's a film for which I became passionate as soon as I saw it.
22:10But I was critical the moment 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, which 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, about men-women relationships.
22:31And I think it's the only film in which I've seen a theme that is very interesting
22:38in a certain stage of romantic relationships, which is bitterness.
22:42The bitterness of people who have loved each other, who don't love each other anymore, and who see each other again.
22:45And I don't think any film has treated that as well as Johnny Guitar.
22:50What do you have to do with it?
22:52I'm holding the goddamn thing there.
22:54Shut up!
22:56Shut up!
22:58What?
23:00At points I feel drained of that.
23:02As their concept of the film evolved, Ray and his students continually revised their scenario,
23:07endlessly reshooting sequences.
23:11By this time, they had been working together for nearly two years.
23:15What I feel is that I want to give.
23:20Right, I know. It's very difficult right now.
23:25As the project's shortage of funds grew critical, production would cease intermittently for want of cash to buy film stock.
23:31Ray fell ill that winter and suffered from bouts of despair.
23:35Because when you hand her the blankets, you're the one who wanted to come in and warm Tom originally, as you did, right?
23:45Right.
23:47And so at this moment...
23:49The company would work when it could, from 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, or I could ever get him such a good acting teacher.
24:10I think he's the greatest teacher of acting in the world.
24:14I'm really excited by that.
24:17The reason that I still work on the film, because I've wanted to leave, you know, now since May,
24:25is because this relationship that I have with Nick is still very exciting.
24:32The energy is still very high.
24:36You don't even take time with me anymore.
24:39Play your part or else get your ass off the set.
24:42My concentration is on him in this angle and I don't want your personal hostility
24:48or whatever the hell you are feeling to take a part in the film.
24:53At this point, not at all.
24:55Not at all, at all, at all, Leslie!
25:00My personal hostility is not involved in the film.
25:03It's not involved when I walk from here to there.
25:06So I don't know what you're talking about.
25:09Well, then, honey, you haven't learned anything about acting.
25:13If that's, you know, your judgment, fine, keep it.
25:20But I remain immune to it.
25:24You sure know your immunities, you know.
25:27Yes.
25:30I will not try to convince you.
25:34I will not try to convince you.
25:36All you can do is just cut ass out.
25:43If I waited for you four hours tonight, that meant...
25:46You didn't wait for me!
25:48You didn't wait for me!
25:50If I waited for you four hours tonight, that meant...
25:52You didn't wait for me for four hours!
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.
26:19I thought there's some kind of communication.
26:30We waited for you, for Christ's sake.
26:33Well, how was I going to get over here?
26:35Somebody was going to come after you when you called.
26:37But they didn't.
26:38And I called and no one came.
26:40You were going on to campus.
26:41I was not.
26:42You said, don't go on campus.
26:43I did not go on campus.
26:45Because then it would take even an hour.
26:48You're talking petty bullshit.
26:50I am not!
26:51You're talking petty bullshit.
26:52I am not!
26:53Four hours is a lot of time.
26:54You want to talk about the part, I'll talk about the part.
26:56I will not talk about petty bullshit.
26:58It's not petty bullshit.
26:59It's a matter of time.
27:00That's all.
27:03And if time is of the essence in this film, then it's not petty.
27:06Do you have any questions about this?
27:08No, I just woke from a day in a day out.
27:22I think the actual scene is not what it is.
27:24I don't know.
27:25I don't know.
27:26I don't know.
27:27I don't know.
27:28I don't know.
27:29I don't know.
27:30I don't know.
27:31I don't know.
27:32I don't know.
27:33I don't know.
27:34I don't know.
27:35All right.
27:36All right.
27:37All right.
27:38All right.
27:39He's in a reluctance.
27:42Yeah.
27:43The letter of...
27:44I don't want him.
27:45I don't want him.
27:46All right.
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.
28:01To show him.
28:03So it's with reluctance you give them to her.
28:07And that is...
28:08This is a whole moment of heroic action.
28:15All right.
28:16Ready for picture, please.
28:18Ready.
28:20That's okay.
28:21Roll them.
28:22Sound on.
28:23Camera on.
28:24Speed.
28:25Action.
28:33All right.
28:34Now.
28:35Turn that way again.
28:49Sorry.
28:51All right.
28:57I like this very much.
28:59I just want to see the other kind of graciousness come into it.
29:08I want to extend...
29:12Extend the moment a little longer.
29:16Because it may take a moment and...
29:20Or just a second and a thought.
29:24The kind of miracle in film where...
29:28You can extend that thought into...
29:3130 seconds.
29:3240 seconds.
29:35No, we want to extend it to 8 seconds.
29:46The move was good.
29:49All right.
29:50So I think it's the move first and then the...
29:54Okay, darling, you...
29:56You do it.
30:07Leslie!
30:09Ah.
30:11Wonderful.
30:13Leslie.
30:15Leslie.
30:17Leslie.
30:18Leslie.
30:22I try not to direct them until just before the scene,
30:25which is part of what the hassle was about last night.
30:29But when a person has the stink of the gallows about her...
30:34How...
30:36Then you...
30:38Then you're bound to run into...
30:41The same thing that you might run into with a Tallulah Bankhead.
30:45Or a...
30:47A...
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 talent which he was showing in the days
31:37when he was making Rebel Without a Cause.
31:39And those were extremely...
31:41Passionate 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 with Dennis Hopper.
32:35In which Dennis was driving too fast.
32:37We were all thrown from the car
32:39and brought to the hospital.
32:41And I was sort of semi-conscious.
32:44And they were...
32:45The police were called.
32:46And they were asking me my parents' phone number.
32:49And I kept saying, it's Nick Ray.
32:51Call Nick Ray.
32:52And the number is...
32:53So forth and so forth.
32:54The number of the Chateau Marmont.
32:55And I just kept repeating that.
32:57And so that's who they did call.
32:59And Nick sent his doctor down to the hospital.
33:01And then he came down.
33:03And I said, Nick, they called me a goddamn juvenile delinquent.
33:05Now do I get the part?
33:07And you got it.
33:09No director that I'd ever worked with had ever improvised.
33:14And Nick's bungalow at the Chateau Marmont where he lived.
33:19Was the...
33:21The set was built from that.
33:23So that when we rehearsed,
33:24we really rehearsed as though in a set.
33:26And we improvised most of the scenes.
33:29Could you tell us something about
33:31the relationship between Nick Ray and Jimmy Dean?
33:34Well, they obviously had become very close.
33:37Because before the film started,
33:39they sort of hung around together.
33:41And as you mentioned, went to New York.
33:43And so that Jimmy trusted Nick a great deal.
33:46And I think Nick was very fatherly towards Jimmy.
33:51I mean, he was to Sal and to myself as well.
33:55But I think Nick just absolutely understood Jimmy.
33:58They were just completely in tune in personality.
34:01I guess maybe Jimmy reminded Nick a bit
34:04and Nick of himself a great deal.
34:06So that there was never any friction
34:08as there was between Jimmy and other directors that he worked with.
34:12And it was just a wonderful blend.
34:15And Nick brought out this feeling of trust in Jimmy.
34:19But working with Jimmy was...
34:26Like a real joy.
34:29But I had the advantage of his having worked with Kazan.
34:39Where he at least had a method of beginning.
34:45I developed the method a little bit more.
34:49Because Kazan and I had matriculated
34:51about the same time in the theater.
34:55And he had taught me a lot.
34:58I 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 damn near every actor.
35:12And I honored his imagination more than almost anything else.
35:16Dean was the only one in the cast
35:18who had any real comprehension of method
35:21or of the school of theater in which I had grown up.
35:25And...
35:32You couldn't use the word improvise.
35:34If you used the word improvise with people like Andoran.
35:39Or Jim Backus.
35:42Or Virginia Brissac.
35:46They'd say, oh this artsy school.
35:51And...
35:54So you'd...
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
36:07really 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
36:23who came over with Henry Irving
36:25and Minnie Madden Fisk.
36:27Or burlesque people
36:29like Red Buttons
36:33or Phil Silvers.
36:39Or from miners or shrimp fishermen.
36:48Or your own peers
36:50as you grow up in the theater.
36:53Or Cary Grant for instance
36:55is a...
36:58is a fellow like...
37:00Duke Ellington has in his trunk
37:04so many tunes.
37:06Well, Cary Grant has
37:08so many notes of sunsets.
37:11So many jokes.
37:13So many things that he's collected
37:15and remained collecting every single year of his life.
37:17You know.
37:19That his memory
37:22his effective memory
37:24is always implemented by
37:26an easy reference.
37:30He has them in the trunk.
37:32He doesn't have to refer to them
37:34because the compartments of the brain have them
37:36but having written them down
37:38having noted them
37:40having taken the
37:42the visual memory
37:44of like that tree
37:46between those two little
37:48shacks there
37:51being something which you
37:53might remember in the scene
37:55say why don't we use that.
37:59After Rebel Without a Cause
38:01Nicholas Ray continued to produce some extraordinary work.
38:05Although he was one of Hollywood's most respected directors
38:07Ray still suffered studio interference
38:09that bodlerized his conception
38:11on several films
38:13and he began to work abroad.
38:15Thereafter he drifted from one project to another
38:17through the Byzantine complications
38:19of independent production
38:21and multinational financing.
38:23Compromises were still required
38:25but Ray did enjoy a measure of autonomy
38:27beyond that generally accorded him in Hollywood.
38:29Then in 1960
38:31he was drawn into the world
38:33of blockbuster spectacles.
38:35Although he brought his immense visual talent
38:37and some original conceptions
38:39to the rather inflated material
38:41Nicholas Ray seemed glaringly out of place
38:43overseeing the massive technology
38:45and impersonal logistics
38:48of a King of Kings
38:50or of 55 Days 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 more
39:18vulnerable than other people
39:20everybody has this
39:22but whereas a man like Kazan
39:24who's tough as nails
39:26was able to take it in stride
39:28I think Nick finally was
39:30partially destroyed by it
39:32and became almost perverse
39:34in his resistance
39:36in his
39:38almost being prepared to be screwed
39:40before anticipating
39:42the screwings
39:44actually occurred. Now that is not rare
39:46that happens to many
39:48directors and many people who work in
39:50the business. It affected Nick more
39:52than other people.
39:54Most film courses
39:56or film classes
39:58um
40:00concentrate
40:02on
40:04you know
40:06getting rid of their responsibilities
40:08to the students as quickly as possible
40:10by putting them off in corners and shooting
40:12millimeter films which
40:14they can do 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
41:04we'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
41:20For all
41:22his hardships, Nicholas Ray
41:24remains both intransigent and optimistic
41:26facing an uncertain future
41:28determined to make films in
41:30his own way. In a sense
41:32each project he undertakes
41:34might be likened to the blind run in Rebel Without
41:36a Cause as a slightly
41:38mad test of courage that
41:40leads him up to and perhaps over the edge of
41:42disaster. While
41:44Ray did find in Binghamton momentarily a kind
41:46of 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 I'm a Stranger
42:00Here Myself
42:02The low
42:04camera on this
42:16It might be good emotionally
42:18for you to take the low camera
42:26She's putting the blankets on Tom
42:32Yeah, go ahead
42:34You 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
42:44You show me the 75 here
42:46and
42:48you tip up into it
42:50I think
42:52it's emotionally a good thing
42:54Alright, okay
42:58Footage please
43:00155
43:02It looks very beautiful to me
43:04That's a wrap