Lonely Places: A Nicholas Ray Centennial Rebel Without A Cause August 3, 2011

LONELY PLACES: A NICHOLAS RAY CENTENNIAL
August 3, 5 & 7, 2011 >> Egyptian Theatre & Aero Theatre
Nicholas Ray spent his early years soaking up a staggering array of influences, including studying architecture with Frank Lloyd Wright, working with Elia Kazan in New York’s Theatre of Action, and promoting folk music with Pete Seeger and Alan Lomax. He directed his first film, THEY LIVE BY NIGHT, working with producer John Houseman. Ray soon gained a reputation, both for his unique, intuitive rapport with actors in such films as IN A LONELY PLACE and ON DANGEROUS GROUND and for his combative, almost sadomasochistic relationship with the Hollywood establishment. Although his strangest, most daring (and some say greatest) film came in 1954, with the surreal Joan Crawford Western JOHNNY GUITAR, it was the epochal REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE that was his most widely acclaimed success. His unique friendship with James Dean became the stuff of legend, but it was Ray’s discovery of the widescreen Cinemascope format on REBEL that helped shape the rest of his career. Sadly, almost inevitably, Ray quit Hollywood in the early 1960s (or, more likely, Hollywood quit him). He spent the rest of his creative years as a teacher, inspiring a new generation of filmmakers including Jim Jarmusch and Wim Wenders.
Born in Wisconsin in 1911, Nicholas Ray remains one of film’s most tantalizing enigmas. Join us for this centennial salute to his work, including screenings of BIGGER THAN LIFE and the not-on-DVD KNOCK ON ANY DOOR starring Humphrey Bogart.

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Official Website: http://www.americancinemathequecalendar.com/egyptian_theatre_events