Lonely Places, Dangerous Ground: Nicholas Ray in American Cinema

Description

The director of such classic Hollywood films as In a Lonely Place, Johnny Guitar, and Rebel Without a Cause, Nicholas Ray nevertheless remained on the margins of the American studio system throughout his career, and despite his cult status among auteurist critics and cinephiles, he has also remained at the margins of film scholarship. Lonely Places, Dangerous Ground offers twenty new essays by international film historians and critics that explore the director's place in the history of the Hollywood industry and in the larger institution of cinema, as well as a 1977 interview with Ray that has never before been published in its entirety in English. In addition to readings of Ray's most celebrated films, the book provides a range of approaches to his life and work, engaging new questions of his cinematic authorship with areas that include history and culture, politics and society, gender and sexuality, style and genre, performance, technology, and popular music. The collection also looks at Ray's lesser-known and underappreciated films, and devotes attention to the highly experimental We Can't Go Home Again, his recently restored final film made in the 1970s with his students at Binghamton University, State University of New York. Rediscovering what Ray means to contemporary film studies, the essays show how his films continue to possess a vital power for film history and criticism, and for film culture. Contents Figures Acknowledgments Introduction: Nicholas Ray and the Potential of Cinema Culture Note 1. Looking for Nicholas Ray Note 2. Nicholas Ray: The Breadth of Modern Gesture 3. Economies of Desire: Reimagining Noir in They Live by Night Accidents of Release: They Live by Night’s Production History Hope and the Economy of Desire in They Live by Night Note 4. Knock on Any Door: Realist Form and Popularized Social Science Notes 5. “I’ve Got the Queerest Feeling” about A Woman’s Secret and Born to Be Bad Notes 6. Something More than Noir Showdown at the Fantasy Factory Auteur et Noir 7. On Dangerous Ground: Of Outsiders Rebels without Causes A Shallow and Uneven Affair? 8. Flying Leathernecks: Color and Characterization History, Ideology, and Cultural Contradictions Color and Characterization Notes 9. The Lusty Men and the Post-Western Notes 10. Citizen Nick: Civic Engagement and Folk Culture in the Life and Work of Nicholas Ray Notes 11. A Teacup and a Kiss: Staging Action in Johnny Guitar A Teacup A Kiss 12. “You Can’t Be a Rebel If You Grin”: Masculinity, Performance, and Anxiety in 1950s Rock-and-Roll and the Films of Nicholas Ray Specters of Tomorrow along Nicholas Ray’s Lost Highway Robert Ryan’s Cold Night of the Soul and the Rockabilly Roundup “I’m Stranger Here Myself”: Johnny Guitar and the Delicate Beauty of “Blue Moon” Boys 13. Places and Spaces in Rebel Without a Cause Positions on Rebel’s Spaces Note 14. Nicholas Ray’s Wilderness Films: Word, Law, and Landscape “High Green Wall” Bitter Victory Wind Across the Everglades The Savage Innocents Notes 15. Bigger Than Life: Melodrama, Masculinity, and the American Dream Melodramatizing the Male The “Social Problem” of Bigger Than Life Notes 16. Ray, Widescreen, and Genre: The True Story of Jesse James A Few Words on Widescreen Criticism A Few Words about Authorship Notes 17. Disequilibrium, or: Love Interest (On Party Girl) 18. King of Kings and the Politics of Masculinity in the Cold War Biblical Epic From Atonement to Incarnation From Incarnation to Anxiety Circulation and Response 19. “As Surely as a Criminal Would Die”: Nicholas Ray’s The Doctor and the Devils Notes 20. The Pedagogical Aesthetics of We Can’t Go Home Again Note Postscript: The Class: Interview with Nicholas Ray Nick Ray Interview Nicholas Ray: Chronological Filmography Works Cited Contributors Index