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Nicholas Ray: The Glorious Failure of an American Director
buy it now >； -->； Jean-Luc Godard once proclaimed, "The cinema is Nicholas Ray," acknowledging the wide impact of visionary filmmaker Nicholas Ray, who spent his lifetime creating films that were dark, emotionally charged, and haunted by social misfits - from his debut They Live By Night (1948) to his enduring masterwork, Rebel Without a Cause (1955), from the noir thriller In a Lonely Place (1950) starring Humphrey Bogart and the director’s wife, actress Gloria Grahame, to cult pictures like Bigger Than Life (1956) and Party Girl (1958).
But the darkest, most haunting story of all is Ray’s own life. As a young man, he personified the rambling spirit of early 20th century America and mingled with some of its most famous personalities, from Thornton Wilder and Frank Lloyd Wright, to Woody Guthrie and Humphrey Bogart. Notoriously self-destructive but irresistibly attractive to men and women, Ray empathized with the broken and misunderstood, which allowed him to create characters with unrivaled complexity on-screen. But drink and drugs compounded Ray’s personal problems,Technomarine, and he was destined to suffer a precipitous fall from grace.
Now, in time for the celebration of Ray’s Centenary Celebration in August and the premiere of his ("lost") film at the Venice Film Festival in September, film biographer Patrick McGilligan brings us NICHOLAS RAY: The Glorious Failure of an American Director (Harper Collins/ It Books). With fresh archival research and interviews, McGilligan captures Ray’s fascinating life and offers the definitive chronicle of his film productions, as well as insight into his always iconoclastic, sometimes maddening methods. Beginning with Ray’s formative small-town roots in La Crosse, Wisconsin, McGilligan gives us an unparalleled look into the dark moments and secrets of Ray’s life and work.
Patrick McGilligan is the author of several New York Times Notable Books of the Year and of "Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light," which was nominated for an Edgar in 2003. His most recent biography of the pioneering African American novelist and filmmaker Oscar Micheaux was named one of the "25 Books to Remember" of 2007 by the New York Public Library. He has also penned biographies of Clint Eastwood, Jack Nicholson, Robert Altman,handbags wholesale, and James Cagney. McGilligan lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
McGilligan ... plunges into Ray’s majestic and messy story with his customary assiduousness, creating a clear and balanced portrait of a most complex man.... The sad story,Damier Purses, well and respectfully told, of an American original struggling with procrustean politics,Damier Ebene Canvas Bags, timorous producers and personal demons."
-Kirkus
"[A] fascinating, formidable account of a director whose life was as fraught with complications and melodrama as were his movies. The greater mysteries of Ray’s career, including the authorship of the screenplays of some of his films, are expertly investigated, never speculative or oversimplified...a biographical page-turner."--Library Journal
"Experienced Hollywood biographer McGilligan limns the tragic trajectory of Ray’s career with insight and compassion."--Booklist
NICHOLAS RAY: The Glorious Failure of an American Director is currently available from most major booksellers everywhere.
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