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OSC-039
We Can't Go Home Again / Don't Expect Too Much
Dir. Nicholas Ray & Susan Ray
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IN THEATERS
Date City, ST Theater -
SYNOPSIS
About WE CAN'T GO HOME AGAIN
The most complete, newly restored version of Nicholas Ray’s experimental masterpiece, made with his students at the State University of New York at Binghamton, WE CAN'T GO HOME AGAIN embodies Ray’s approach to filmmaking as a communal way of life. The film records Ray’s groundbreaking use of multiple image as a way of telling more than one story simultaneously, and of colorization as a way to heighten emotional expression. He called it a “journalistic” film, one that shares the anthropologists’ aim of recording the “history, progress, manners, morals, and mores of everyday life,” at a critical moment in American history. Ray plays himself in the film, serving as mentor, friend, and reference point around whom the students’ stories constellate.
About DON'T EXPECT TOO MUCH
Did Nick Ray leave Hollywood, or did Hollywood leave him? What was he up to when he returned to the States after a decade in Europe? What was his intention with We Can’t Go Home Again, that experimental film he made with a bunch of college students? What was he doing with so many images on the screen all at once? How did he do it? Why was the film never finished? Did he lose his way, his talent, his sanity, his common sense? Don’t Expect Too Much, a full-length documentary helmed by Ray’s wife Susan, investigates these questions and the relationship forged by Ray between his life and his art. Drawing on the director’s archive of never-before-seen film, video, and stills, Susan finds answers to our questions about Nick Ray in Nick Ray’s own words and images. And we learn from interviews with members of the original crew of We Can’t Go Home Again, directors Jim Jarmusch and Victor Erice, and others, how this man lived, saw, learned, and taught, how he fought and danced with his demons, how he loved.
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DIRECTOR:
Nicholas Ray & Susan Ray
About Nicholas Ray
Nicholas Ray was born in the heartland of America, in Galesville, Wisconsin, on August 7, 1911. He lived a bold and adventurous life, always searching for a deeper understanding of himself and his world. His career touched every aspect of American cultural life and included his direction of such film classics as Party Girl, In A Lonely Place, Lusty Men, Bigger Than Life, Bitter Victory, and, of course, Rebel Without A Cause. When the Hollywood system became too restrictive, Ray exiled himself to Europe, where he lived for 10 years, returning to the States in 1969. He worked on We Can’t Go Home Again between 1971 and 1976, acted in films of Wenders and Foreman, and in 1977, having come to grips with his alcohol addiction, he turned to teaching, which he has been quoted as saying was the most fulfilling work of his life.
About Susan Ray
Susan Ray was born on November 15, 1951, in New Haven, Connecticut. She attended the University of Chicago, and it was in Chicago, at the Conspiracy Trial, that she first met Nicholas Ray. Soon she was working full-time for the director, and soon after that they were living together in New York. There Susan worked as a book editor while also giving her efforts to whatever project Ray had underway. The couple collaborated on the concept and first pages for We Can’t Go Home Again. She has edited and introduced with her memoir the book I Was Interrupted: Nicholas Ray On Making Movies, and over the years has published several short pieces about Ray. She has practiced Rinzai Zen for 30 years, ordained in the lineage of Kyozan Joshu, Roshi, and studied with a number of indigenous healers. She is a writer by trade, with a semi-fictional novel in final revisions. Don’t Expect Too Much is her first film, and she hopes not her last.
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Cast
WE CAN'T GO HOME AGAIN Cast
Nicholas Ray Richie Bock Tom Farrell Jil Ganon Jane Heymann Leslie Wynne Levinson DON'T EXPECT TOO MUCH Cast
As themselves Gerry Bamman Bernard Eisenschitz Victor Erice Jim Jarmusch Myron Meisel Original Crew from WE CAN'T GO HOME AGAIN and Nicholas Ray -
Credits
WE CAN'T GO HOME AGAIN Crew
Directed by Nicholas Ray Written by Nicholas Ray with Susan Ray Produced by Nicholas Ray Principal Crew Steve Anker Richard Bock Peer Bode Charlie Bornstein Doug Cohen Danny Fisher Stanley Liu Luke Oberle Helene Kaplan Wright DON'T EXPECT TOO MUCH Crew
Directed by Susan Ray Produced by The Nicholas Ray Foundation Susan Ray Edited by Tom Haneke Narrated by Susan Ray Photography by Peter McCandless Music by Tim Ray Norman Zamcheck Markus de Pretto -
Release Info
Catalog Number: OSC-039
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Press Downloads:
Download We Can't Go Home Again / Don't Expect Too Much Press Packet [9.47 MB]
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