HOLLYWOOD CLASSICS: THE CINEMA IS NICHOLAS RAY continuing until December 13 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. See Indie & Rep Film. Rating: NNNNN
TIFF Cinematheque’s ongoing salute to director Nicholas Ray ramps up this weekend with the arrival of the filmmaker’s widow, Susan Ray, for three very special screenings at the Lightbox.
On Saturday (October 29) at 4 pm, Ray will present her documentary Don’t Expect Too Much, which looks at the making of her late husband’s experimental feature We Can’t Go Home Again – a political collage film he made in collaboration with his students at SUNY Binghamton in the early 1970s.
On Sunday at 4 pm, Susan Ray introduces We Can’t Go Home Again in a new restoration that attempts to reconcile the various edits Nicholas Ray made to the picture between its premiere in 1973 and his death in 1979.
These screenings are fine illustrations of where the director’s obsessions took him toward the end of his life. But the real highlight of the weekend is the restored print of the 1957 war picture Bitter Victory, which Susan Ray will introduce Sunday at 1 pm.
Revolving around the power struggle between two British officers (Richard Burton and Curt Jürgens) who happen to be in love with the same woman (Ruth Roman), it’s an excellent example of the director’s emotionally volatile, visually striking approach to melodrama. It’s also the film that prompted the famous Jean-Luc Godard remark from which TIFF’s series takes its name.
Bitter Victory screens again Tuesday (November 1) at 6:30 pm, but, really, you’ll want to see it with Susan Ray.
