Nicholas Ray (1911-1979)
Nicholas Ray is one of the most innovative and influential American directors of the 1950s. Many critics have noted that a key theme in his films is the non-conforming individual struggling against the rigid roles and narrow expectations of mainstream society, such as the three alienated teenagers in his classic Rebel Without A Cause. Ray also felt himself something of an outsider, both because of his interest in making commercial films that were artistically ambitious and his radical political beliefs shaped by the experiences of the Great Depression.
In an introductory essay on Ray, the British film scholar Geoff Andrews wrote,
A line in [Ray's film] Johnny Guitar--"I'm a stranger here myself"--was virtually Ray's motto:
not only did his left-field ethics and artistic ambitions make him something of
an outsider in Hollywood, but his work repeatedly centered on loners, losers,
innocents and dreamers, all seeking love, happiness, a home of sorts, but denied
those things by a society devoted to success, money, power and the favoring of
a self-serving majority over the needs of the individual. Hence Ray's films are
primarily about conflict--not only between society and its outcasts, but within
the alienated protagonists themselves, as they strive to reconcile a need to be
themselves and a desire to belong. And conflict, of course, gives rise to
violence--the study of which in turn places Ray's films among the most
illuminating surveys of his country ever committed to celluloid.
Films
Lightning Over Water (1980)
Marco (1978)
We Can't Go Home Again (1976)
Wet Dreams (1975)
55 Days at Peking (1963)
King of Kings (1961)
The Savage Innocents (1959)
Party Girl (1958)
Wind Across the Everglades (1958)
Bitter Victory (1958)
The True Story of Jesse James (1957)
Bigger Than Life (1956)
Bad Blood (1956)
Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
Run for Cover (1955)
Johnny Guitar (1954)
The Lusty Men (1952)
On Dangerous Ground (1952)
Flying Leathernecks (1951)
Born to Be Bad (1950)
In a Lonely Place (1950)
They Live by Night (1949)
A Woman's Secret (1949)
Knock on Any Door (1949)