On DVD at home with Lucía, on 18 April, 2008, late at night.
Nicholas Ray seems like a pretty inconsistent director. I’ve now seen at least five of his films. His films seem to be trying to break into Hollywood as much as they try to break out of Hollywood. He is as unconventional as he is conventional, and while cliché dialogue will often match unusual story twists, even more often very strange dialogue will accompany rather groan-worthy plot developments. The performances he gets from his actors is often very awkward and opaque (inscrutable?), and while not necessarily believable or engaging, they can seem very appropriate to the characters they are playing. Just as inconsistent, I suppose, is Bernard Herrmann, and this is probably one of his worst scores.
The first half of the film was very interesting. Robert Ryan’s character is slowly built out mostly through the reactions of his acquaintances, and the story itself takes a back seat this exploration, in which we see the city as a grim and lonely place (to say that alienation is a common theme in Ray’s films would be something of an understatement). Having established the character, however, the film takes us through a roller-coaster ride in the form of a rather ludicrous rural wintertime chase. The purpose of this is to enable the transformation of Robert Ryan’s character, and this is managed in about as unsubtle a way as possible.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
One Response:
April 22nd, 2008 at 18:10
I’d say that the shot of Robert Ryan in the car reading a memo from the chief that instructs him to join the rural posse is the exact moment that the film takes a turn for the groan-worthy. I still love listening to Ida Lupino, though. I want to see more of the films she’s directed, too.