Im A Stranger Here Myself 1975

ReelRealm

14 hours ago

Transcript

00:00The End

00:30Hold on, T-Double.

01:00Hold on, T-Double.

01:30So long, T-Double.

01:32See ya.

01:34Take it easy.

01:36But take it.

01:38What's next?

01:40Now we can start strutting.

01:42One thing you gotta learn, kid.

01:44You gotta look and act like other people.

01:46What's next?

01:48Now we can start strutting.

01:50One thing you gotta learn, kid.

01:52You gotta look and act like other people.

01:54You gotta look and act like other people.

01:58Hell, when I first got to France

02:04and read

02:06the critiques of René,

02:08Godard, 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

02:20a person

02:22who has the audacity

02:24to make a film

02:26in the first place.

02:28He shouldn't ever consciously

02:30put his own neuroses on screen.

02:32Well, most of your heroes

02:34are pretty neurotic.

02:38My heroes are no more neurotic

02:40than the audience.

02:42Unless you can feel

02:44that a hero

02:46is just as fucked up as you are

02:48and that you would make the same mistakes

02:50you can have no satisfaction

02:54when he does commit

02:56a heroic act.

02:58Because then you can say,

03:00hell, I could have done that too.

03:02And that's the obligation of the filmmaker,

03:06of the theater worker

03:08to give a heightened sense of experience

03:10to the people who pay

03:14to come to see his work.

03:24From 1947 to 1962,

03:26Nicholas Ray directed some of the most richly personal work

03:28in American cinema.

03:30Yet in 1971,

03:32when he accepted a teaching post

03:34at Harper College in Binghamton, New York,

03:36he had not completed a film

03:37in nearly a decade.

03:38At Binghamton,

03:39Ray trained his students

03:40to be a working production unit,

03:42teaching them filmmaking

03:43by shooting a feature film

03:45as a collaborative creative effort

03:47under his supervision.

03:48Grow.

03:50Not grow.

03:51The word didn't grow,

03:52but become us.

03:53You've just described it.

03:54All right.

03:55All right.

03:56All right.

03:57Places, please.

03:58Places.

03:59Born in 1911,

04:00Nicholas Ray left his hometown

04:01of La Crosse, Wisconsin at 16

04:03to study under Frank Lloyd Wright.

04:05After a brief university career,

04:08Nicholas Ray left his hometown

04:10of La Crosse, Wisconsin at 16

04:12to study under Frank Lloyd Wright.

04:14After a brief university career,

04:17Ray emigrated to New York City

04:19at the height of the Depression.

04:20There he became involved

04:22in the lively experimental theater

04:23of the 30s, working as an actor

04:26with such politically progressive

04:27groups as the Workers' Theater

04:29and the Federal Theater Project,

04:30which included the living newspaper.

04:32It was there that Ray learned

04:35the improvisational methods

04:36that he would employ in Hollywood

04:38and would still be using

04:39with his students in Binghamton

04:40more than 30 years later.

04:42It began on East 12th Street,

04:45not a few blocks from here.

04:47Led to my association with Kazan

04:52and Houseman,

04:54from whom I learned more than

04:56any other two people in the world.

04:58I worked in a workers' theater.

05:14We graduated to Broadway,

05:17and somehow or other one day Kazan said,

05:20come on, you've been spending enough time

05:22in radio, theater, television.

05:26I'm going out to Hollywood

05:27to make my first film.

05:31Come on along and help me.

05:36Houseman, same thing.

05:38I suppose I've collaborated with Houseman

05:41on more things than anybody else

05:43I've ever worked with.

05:45Nick had come to New York

05:47during the depths of the Depression

05:49when life was very strange,

05:52sort of rather desperate

05:54and at the same time

05:56extremely hopeful

06:00and there was almost no limit

06:02to the dreams one could have

06:04because everything was so terrible

06:05that everything was dreams.

06:06Nick was himself a very vulnerable,

06:10very sensitive, almost too sensitive person

06:15in some ways

06:17and in some ways very aggressive

06:20and assertive

06:21in other ways extremely reticent

06:23and shy

06:24and that combination is very good

06:26for a director with actors.

06:29Particularly his real talent

06:31lay in what he could do

06:33with very young and tender

06:35and sensitive and insecure people

06:37like Cathy O'Donnell,

06:39Farley Granger.

06:53Hello, hello.

06:57Do you do the marrying?

06:58That's my business.

07:00I have a $30 wedding

07:01which gives it completely

07:02according to the ceremony on record.

07:03I have a $20...

07:04What will you just marry us?

07:05That'll be $20.

07:07Tilly, Herman.

07:08Who are they?

07:09A sister and her husband.

07:11Witnesses.

07:12We have to have them?

07:13Oh yeah.

07:14First you've got to sign your names

07:17over here.

07:24If you'll just sign the register.

07:27I'll rent your ring for a dollar.

07:29Or sell you one for five.

07:30I'll buy one.

07:31And...

07:32This one will do it.

07:33And...

07:34This one will do it.

07:35And...

07:36This one will do it.

07:37andeb

07:45And...

07:49Then...

07:50I'll rent your ring for a dollar.

07:51Or sell you one for five.

07:54Or buy one.

07:56And...

07:57This one will do it.

07:58By virtue of the power vested in me,

08:26I hereby perform this wedding ceremony.

08:29Do you, Catherine, take this man, Arthur,

08:31as your lawful wedded husband,

08:32to love, honor, and cherish henceforth?

08:34I do.

08:35Do you, Arthur, take this woman, Catherine,

08:37as 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 your husband and wife.

08:56Your tipper means a dollar.

09:05Wish all the health, happiness, and wealth in the world.

09:09Herman, you got a cold.

09:12I'm sorry, I have.

09:15Well, that'll be twenty dollars plus five for the ring.

09:24You don't think much of my way of marrying people, do you?

09:26I sure don't.

09:27Well, me neither.

09:29I'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 ten-year absence

10:20to make a film about the Chicago conspiracy trial.

10:24What 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.

10:58One day, Lee Weiner came to me and asked if I were a friend of Groucho Marx's,

11:05and I said, yes.

11:07He said, do you suppose we could get Groucho as an expert witness for us?

11:15And so we'll try.

11:18And he said, 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.

11:30And to see Dave Dellinger, the oldest of the group and a Quaker pacifist,

11:45be the only one to put his body in front of Bobby Seale to protect him from the blows of the police.

11:53There'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...

12:14Look at those magnificent bastards in there.

12:17Hey, get a shot of those cats in there.

12:19Well, who's talking to Howard Hughes?

12:22Oh, get in the window, you schmuck.

12:25Hey, get in the window.

12:26Yeah, yeah.

12:27Francois Fouché was here.

12:29And he says you're a bastard.

12:30I think you got your pancake on over there.

12:32He says you're a bastard.

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.

13:07He'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.

13:28He's, as a character, I guess he's something like the parole officer in Rebel.

13:35Always caring for young people.

13:38And he'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 that 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 attempted to develop an original approach to filmmaking

14:08that would express in a new way the process of self-discovery that has always been one of Nick Ray's central themes.

14:14Look, I like this quality on here better than I like the corrected one.

14:21This one is it?

14:23The overexposed one.

14:24Why do you like that one better?

14:25Because I like it better.

14:27Now, look, this is dull.

14:32This is one of the many aesthetic characters in the world. Look at this.

14:37I know which thought it is. I know which thought it is.

14:39Well, this is dull as hell, you know?

14:42How did Bogart take to playing the part of the writer in In a Lonely Place, which is rather a departure for him?

14:50Well, I had taken the gun away from his hand for the first time and knock on any door.

14:56And the second time, he was ready for it, a little bit more ready for it.

15:09And he obviously loved it. It's one of his favorite films.

15:16But it was a very personal story.

15:21A very personal story.

15:24The last part of it, I had written with Andrew Salt, and Bundy Salt had headed east.

15:39In the meantime, I had separated from my wife, Gloria Graham, who was playing opposite Bogie.

15:46And if I had let the producer Bobby Lord or Bogie know that, they 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, because I don't want to drive to Malibu every night.

16:09And I want to get down and get on stage and work at night, which I did.

16:19And Gloria behaved beautifully. Nobody knew that we were separated.

16:24And I just couldn't believe the ending that Bundy and I had written.

16:31I 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.

16:44The original ending we had written so that it was all tied up into a very neat package.

16:50Frank Lovejoy coming in and arresting him as he was writing the last lines, having killed Gloria.

16:57And I said, what shit?

17:00I 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.

17:12And let the audience find out and make up its own mind about what's going to happen to Bogie

17:20when he goes outside of the apartment area, which was the first apartment I lived in in Hollywood, by the way.

17:29This is a very personal film.

17:32Bogart plays a neurotic screenwriter with a violent temper who was unjustly suspected of murder.

17:41The police investigation places an intolerable strain on his relationship with Gloria Graham.

17:46Right 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.

18:03Can we mix the speaker over this?

18:09Right.

18:10There we go.

18:11There we go.

18:12Which take is this?

18:13This is like take four or something.

18:14Most of it.

18:15Listen to take six.

18:16Six?

18:17Yes, there is one.

18:18Right there.

18:19And also, I want to put back in, because in seeing the assemblage in Boston, it struck me that we have no resolution to this at all.

18:44And we must have that jump, that jump of Leslie into Doug's arms.

18:51Pull it out.

18:52Why don't you do the tape?

18:53No.

18:54Oh, yeah.

18:55Sure.

18:56How did you approach your cutting in Hollywood?

18:59But I would cut every night after shooting.

19:01As you want.

19:02Right.

19:03I'll usually have a rough cut in the film within a week after I finish.

19:07But this is different.

19:12This is a method of teaching.

19:19That we have come out with the film is, we hope, a very lucky accident.

19:27Now it's crescendo, right from here.

19:37Before that.

19:38Before that.

19:39This 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 to crescendo?

19:48Crescendo begins while we're on their backs.

19:50Oh, while we're on their backs.

19:52Right, right there.

19:53So if I cut two bars, I think that will...

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?

20:01Following a rotation system with somebody being on one sequence,

20:06somebody else being on another sequence.

20:08And finding that a person who may be emotionally involved in one sequence may not be doing as good an editing job as somebody else might do.

20:23Take him off, put him onto something else.

20:25Do you find you... Can you get a consistent rhythm to the picture with...

20:31That's my final job.

20:34Everything that goes through here now goes through me.

20:40Finally, there can only be me.

20:44Finally, there must be the director.

20:46Whenever you're ready, Luke.

20:48Yeah, okay.

20:4916, you ready?

20:50Turn up the lights, please.

20:51When the young French critics first began to develop the author theory, the 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 from Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard and their colleagues than Nicholas Ray.

21:08I think that what attracted us to is that there was something that was European for this man in Hollywood.

21:15What was European?

21:17It was perhaps the fragility and vulnerability of the main characters.

21:21Even though there were a lot of emotions, even though there were a lot of emotions like John Wayne or Fred Bogart.

21:26And his masculine characters were not macho.

21:29Or Sterling Hayden.

21:31There was this great sensibility.

21:34And...

21:35Especially in the treatment, I must say, of the sentimental stories.

21:39Which gave an impression of a very great reality.

21:41And when the cinema of Hollywood was not easily personal or autobiographical,

21:46we had always felt that the stories of love in the films of Nicholas Ray were true.

21:52What was the film about Johnny Guitar?

21:57I said once, and I'm ready to say it today, before this camera,

22:01I said once, that a film like Johnny Guitar has more importance in my life than in the of Nicholas Ray.

22:07It's a film for which I was passionate about it since I saw it.

22:10But I was criticized when I saw it.

22:12I wrote it on it.

22:13And I wrote it on it.

22:14And I wrote it on it.

22:15And we started like that a correspondence with Nicholas Ray.

22:19But I spoke about Johnny Guitar, which is a film,

22:22which has a very great importance in my life.

22:24I don't know why.

22:25Because I found it very strong, very profound,

22:28on the relations of men and women.

22:31And I believe that it's the only film...

22:34It's the only film in which I've seen traiter a theme

22:37which is very interesting,

22:38in a certain stage of relationships,

22:40which is the amertume.

22:42The amertume of people who have loved, who have no more,

22:44and who have loved it.

22:45And I believe that no film has treated it as well as Johnny Guitar.

22:48As their concept of the film evolved,

23:03Ray and his students continually revised their scenario,

23:06endlessly reshooting sequences.

23:08By this time they've been working together for nearly two years.

23:13As the project's shortage of funds grew critical,

23:27production would cease intermittently for want of cash to buy film stock.

23:31Ray fell ill that winter and suffered from bouts of despair.

23:35The 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.

23:56Action!

23:57I don't think that I could have gotten, or I could ever get 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.

24:16And the reason that, that I still work on the film,

24:19because I've wanted to leave, you know, now for, since May,

24:25is because, um, this relationship that I have with Nick is still very exciting.

24:31The energy is still very high.

24:36You don't even take time with me anymore.

24:38Play your part or else get your ass off the set.

24:41My concentration is on him in this angle,

24:44and I don't want your personal hostility,

24:47or whatever the hell you are feeling,

24:50to take a part in the film.

24:52At this point, not at all.

24:55Not at all, at all, at all, Leslie.

24:58My personal hostility is not involved in the film.

25:10It's not involved when I walk from there to there.

25:13So I don't know what you're talking about.

25:16Well then, honey, you haven't learned anything about acting.

25:20If that's, if that's, you know, your judgment.

25:22Right.

25:23Fine, keep it.

25:24But I remain immune to it.

25:28If I know what I know.

25:30You sure know our, your immunity, you know.

25:33Yes.

25:35I, I will not try to convince you.

25:39I will not try to convince you.

25:41All you, all you can do is just cut ass out.

25:47If I waited for you four hours tonight, that meant that I didn't wait for you.

25:51You didn't wait for me for four hours.

25:53I did fucking too.

25:54I beg your pardon.

25:56I beg your pardon.

25:57Tell me when you waited for four hours for me.

26:03From 8.15 till 12.

26:058.15 you called.

26:06That's right.

26:07Who did you talk to?

26:09Judy.

26:10So how did you wait for me?

26:15Because she's part of the crew.

26:18I thought there's some kind of communication.

26:30We waited for you, for Christ's sake.

26:32Well, how was I going to get over here?

26:34Somebody was going to come after you when you called.

26:37But they didn't.

26:38And I called and no one came.

26:39And you were going on the campus.

26:40I was not.

26:41You said, don't go on campus.

26:43I did not go on campus.

26:44Because then it would take even an hour.

26:46You're talking bullshit.

26:47I am not.

26:48You're talking petty bullshit.

26:50I am not.

26:51Four hours is a lot of time.

26:52We couldn't have done a lot of stuff.

26:53You 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.

27:00And if time is of the essence in this film, then it's not petty.

27:16Do you have any questions about this?

27:18No, I just walked from there to there.

27:32That's the actual scene for what it is.

27:36How are you feel?

27:37How are you feel?

27:38How are you?

27:39How are you?

27:40Even though I love you.

27:43Good.

27:45I don't want to feel any kind of reluctance at all.

27:50You should.

27:52It's for the scene.

27:56Because you want to do that thing for him.

28:00I do.

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 the 70s.

28:12All right, ready for picture, please.

28:17We've got to get the focus on.

28:18Ready.

28:19Less OK.

28:20Roll them.

28:21Sound on.

28:22Camera on.

28:23Speed.

28:24All right.

28:25Action!

28:33All right, now.

28:34Turn that way again.

28:37Cut.

28:40Cut.

28:41Hot, hot.

28:49Sorry.

28:51All right.

28:57I like this very much. I just want to see the other kind of graciousness.

29:08I want to extend

29:11the moment a little longer.

29:15Because what may take a moment or just a second in the thought

29:26is the kind of miracle we film where

29:30you can extend that thought into

29:33thirty seconds, forty seconds.

29:37Now we want to extend it to eight seconds.

29:39The move was good.

29:50All right.

29:51All right.

29:57So I think this move first and then they...

30:01Okay darling, you...

30:03You do it.

30:04You do it.

30:16Leslie!

30:18Wonderful.

30:20Thanks.

30:21I try not to direct them until just before the scene, which is part of what the hassle was about last night.

30:28And... but when the person has the stink of the gallows about her...

30:31How...

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 bank head.

30:45Or a...

30:46Well hell, I've only had two fights with actors in my life, really.

30:57And you use what is of their essence at the moment.

31:00Because that is their easiest reference point.

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 Bingham film.

31:21And some of them were...

31:23I couldn't tell what the whole film was like at all.

31:25I mean, there wasn't enough of it.

31:27But 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 Rebel Without A Cause.

31:40And those extremely passionate and vital pictures about the young.

31:47How did you get the part in Rebel?

31:49Well, Nick made a lot of tests.

31:52Of different girls.

31:54I think there were about 50 of us.

31:55And it sort of narrowed down.

31:57There were 50 to begin with.

31:58And the second day it was down to 10.

32:00And the third day I think it was down to...

32:02Five or six.

32:04But the big problem was...

32:06That I had really up to that point only played children.

32:09And although I was 15...

32:11The last thing I did was in Pigtails or something.

32:13And so I was finding it difficult to convince...

32:14And Nick was also finding it difficult to convince the studio that I was out of Pigtails.

32:20So one day I came on an interview with a boyfriend who had a cut on his face.

32:25And Nick said, where did he get that?

32:27And I said, drag racing.

32:28And then shortly afterward I was actually in a bad car accident with Dennis Hopper.

32:36In which Dennis was driving too fast.

32:37And we were all thrown from the car and brought to the hospital.

32:40And I was sort of semi-conscious.

32:42And they were...

32:45The police were called and they were asking me my parents' phone number.

32:49And I kept saying, it's Nick Ray. Call Nick Ray.

32:52And the number is so 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 and I said, Nick, they called me a goddamn juvenile delinquent.

33:04Now do I get the part.

33:06And you got it.

33:07And I got it.

33:09No director that I'd ever worked with had ever improvised.

33:13And Nick's bungalow at the Chateau Marmont where he lived was the...

33:20The set was built from that.

33:23So that when we rehearsed, we really rehearsed as though in a set.

33:26And we improvised most of the scenes.

33:29Could you tell us something about the relationship between Nick Ray and Jimmy Dean?

33:35Well, they obviously had become very close.

33:39Because before the film started, they 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 was very fatherly towards Jimmy.

33:52I mean, he was to Sal and to myself as well.

33:55But I think Nick just absolutely understood Jimmy.

33:59They were just completely in tune and personality.

34:01I guess maybe Jimmy reminded Nick of himself a great deal.

34:06So that there was never any friction as there was between Jimmy and other directors that he worked with.

34:11And it was just a wonderful blend.

34:14And Nick brought out this feeling of trust in Jimmy.

34:17But working with Jimmy was like a real joy.

34:28But I had the advantage of his having worked with Kazan.

34:33And where he at least had a method of beginning.

34:46I developed the method a little bit more.

34:49Because Kazan and I had matriculated about the same time in the theater.

34:54And he had taught me a lot.

34:57I think the nicest thing Kazan 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.

35:15Dean was the only one in the cast who had any real comprehension of method or of the school of theater in which I had grown up.

35:25And you couldn't use the word improvise.

35:35If you used the word improvise with people like Andaran or Jim Backus or Virginia Brissack,

35:44They'd say, oh, this, oh, this artsy school, hmm?

35:51And, and, uh, uh, so you'd, I'd use old vaudevillian terms.

35:58The director has to be able to work with everybody from every, every school, you know?

36:05No cast is ever made up of really the same people, the same background.

36:10Uh, so you have to use all the techniques you've ever learned.

36:16Whether it's that, what you learned from a vaudevillian or from an old leading man like Fuller Mellish

36:22who came over with Henry Irving and Minnie Madden Fisk or, or, uh, burlesque people like Red Buttons or, or, uh, Phil Silvers or, uh, uh,

36:39or from miners or shrimp fishermen or, uh, or your own peers as you grow up at the theater.

36:51It's, uh, it's, uh, a Cary Grant, for instance, as a, as a fellow like Duke Ellington has in, in his trunk, so many tunes.

37:05Well, Cary Grant has so many notes of sunsets, so many jokes, so many things that he's collected and remained collecting every single year of his life, you know?

37:17That, that, that his, his, his memory, his effective memory is always implemented by an easy reference, you know?

37:29He has them in the trunk, he doesn't have to refer to them because the compartments of the brain have them,

37:34but having written them down, having noted them, having taken the, the, uh, the visual memory of, like that tree between those two little shacks there,

37:48being something which you might remember in the scene, say, why don't we use that?

37:56After Rebel Without a Cause, Nicholas Ray continued to produce some extraordinary work.

38:04Although he was one of Hollywood's most respected directors, Ray still suffered studio interference that Baudelarized his conception on several films,

38:12and he began to work abroad.

38:14Thereafter, he drifted from one project to another through the Byzantine complications of independent production and multinational financing.

38:21Compromises were still required, but Ray did enjoy a measure of autonomy beyond that generally accorded him in Hollywood.

38:29Then, in 1960, he was drawn into the world of blockbuster spectacles.

38:34Although he brought his immense visual talent and some original conceptions to the rather inflated material,

38:40Nicholas Ray seemed glaringly out of place, overseeing the massive technology and impersonal logistics of a king of kings,

38:48or of 55 days at Peking.

38:51Uh, why did he get discouraged?

38:53Uh, this is the terrible evil, I think, of the Hollywood system.

38:57I think you, uh, end up, because you do get screwed occasionally by studios, you do get frustrated,

39:05uh, they do mess up your work and make it more difficult for you to work,

39:09or they did in those days when the studios really existed, they don't really exist anymore, in that sense.

39:14Um, I think Nick, uh, was probably much more vulnerable than other people.

39:19Everybody has this.

39:20But whereas a man like Kazan, uh, was able, who's tough as nails, was able to take it in stride,

39:26I think Nick finally was, uh, partially destroyed by it and became almost perverse in his, uh, in his resistance,

39:35in his, uh, uh, almost being prepared to be screwed before, uh, anticipating the screwing before they actually occurred.

39:45Now that is not rare. That happens to many directors and many people who work in the business.

39:50It affected Nick more than other people.

39:53Most, uh, film courses or film classes, uh, uh, concentrate on, you know, getting rid of the responsibilities

40:08of the students as quickly as possible by putting them off in corners and shooting eight millimeter films,

40:13which they can do all by themselves and, uh, present for a senior thesis.

40:22Therefore the emphasis is on a kind of static camera with a, uh, of,

40:30with cute ideas or masturbatory ideas or date making ideas or anything except the, uh, relationship with other human beings.

40:42And film is a collective art. It's an eclectic art. It's a collective art.

40:47And, uh, and it's, uh, by its own nature become the most communicative art that we have in the world.

41:00And the only two great ambassadors we've ever had from the United States have been jazz and film.

41:07And that doesn't come from sitting off in a corner.

41:20For all his hardships, Nicholas Ray remains both intransigent and optimistic, facing an uncertain future, determined to make films in his own way.

41:30In a sense, each project he undertakes might be likened to the blind run in Rebel Without a Cause as a slightly mad test of courage that leads him up to and perhaps over the edge of disaster.