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We Can't Go Home Again (1976) / Don't Expect Too Much (2011)

Presented by Belcourt Theatre at Belcourt Theatre

December 6, 2011

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As the fall turns to winter, we bring the films of the great director and Wisconsin native Nicholas Ray (1911-1979) with a particular focus on his work in the 1950s, his most productive decade. Fearlessly crossing genres from picture to picture, Ray’s work of this period expressed a common theme of humankind’s malcontent with his surroundings (particularly that of teenagers) emboldened by expressionist photography and often a tumultuous rise to a crashing resolve. A maverick long before the cheapening of the word, Nicolas Ray’s defiant (some say narcissistic) work ethic often pitted him against his studio heads yet produced some of the most electric work of the time.

 

WE CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN (1976/2011 New 35mm Restoration)

In this experiment in collaborative filmmaking, Nicholas Ray and a group of students create a collage of images and fictionalized conversations culled from time spent in a communal home discussing the nature of cinema, politics and life. The result is an infuriating pastiche of the ideas and beliefs of a lost generation presided over by the great maverick of cinema. With multiple film formats, early video synthesizer effects and a multi-screen layout, the end result of the film is a dizzying discussion of disillusionment and the desperate search for meaning and expression in a world that is always changing. On the occasion of Ray’s centenary, we are proud to present the most complete version of this one-of-a-kind film in a stunning digital restoration undertaken by Ray’s widow, Susan Ray, President of The Nicholas Ray Foundation, in close collaboration with the EYE Film Institute Netherlands and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Academy Film Archive. 1976, 90 min, New 35mm Restoration on loan courtesy of the Academy Film Archive with a special nod to Oscilloscope Laboratories.

"What happens when you let the industry's greatest congenial sonofabitch snap the frayed ends of his tether and run amok in the fields of cinema."
-Michael Atkinson, Altscreen

--Followed by DON’T EXPECT TOO MUCH
Dir. Susan Ray, 2011, appr. 60 min, Digital Video
Using film, video, and stills from Nicholas Ray’s archive, along with interviews with original crew members and directors Jim Jarmusch and Victor Erice, Susan Ray reconstructs the making of Nick’s last, long-unseen work We Can’t Go Home Again.