Nicholas Ray’s Experimental ‘We Can’t Go Home Again’ To Play In Venice

The New York Times is reporting that “We Can’t Go Home Again,” an experimental and unfinished film by maverick filmmaker Nicholas Ray (“Rebel Without A Cause”, “In A Lonely Place,” “On Dangerous Ground”), will be showcased at this next year’s Venice International Film Festival. Last we heard the film was going to show in Venice in 2011, but apparently that schedule has been revised.

Update: Ok, maybe not, the date is still 2011, apologies, we got ahead of ourselves.

The film is described as being “experimental… difficult… and (a) visionary film that is particularly important today,” by his widow Susan Ray. It contains what Ray described as “mimages,” which were multiple images shown on the screen at once, shot on 8mm, 16mm, and low grade 1970s digital video. The different images were projected at once, and then the projection was shot with 35mm. Ray worked on the film with his students from SUNY Binghamton, and they also star in the film as fictionalized versions of themselves.

Previously shown at 1973’s Cannes Film Festival, Ray had continued to alter the film until his death in 1979. The new version will also have unused footage edited in by his wife. She confidently mentions that she was working on the project since day one, but also notes that she couldn’t say what the final outcome would’ve been if he were alive to finish it himself. “He would get something done during the day and then pull it apart at night.”

While it’s always interesting to see an experimental film from a director that has been strictly and safely narrative, one film historian calls it “a mess of incoherent footage and abortive projects,” the keyword being “mess” which you’ll find in nearly any review of the film found online (though there’s only a couple). Also, no one’s necessarily clamoring for the unfinished experimental film from the director of “Rebel Without A Cause,” so unless this really wows the festival audience (and a few distributors), audiences outside of Venice will still have to wait indefinitely to catch the film. The most logical way it could be released is maybe on a Criterion package of another film in his repertoire (“In A Lonely Place” starring Humphrey Bogart as a screenwriter accused of murder with a rivetingly venomous turn by Gloria Grahame as the femme fatale demands that treatment), but a stand-alone release is unlikely.

While obviously best known for “Rebel Without a Cause” and its blueprint for beautiful and angsty disaffected youth, Ray’s work, predominantly in the 1940s and ’50s, was a huge influence on the French New Wave, including his debut picture, “They Live by Night” (1949) — which in many ways is a proto-“Bonnie & Clyde” and François Truffaut dubbed his “best film” — and the noirs “On Dangerous Ground” and “A Woman’s Secret.”

We’ll get the real lowdown on “We Can’t Go Home Again” in September, when reviews from the Venice International Film Festival start rolling in. Until then, just watch the recently released Criterion version of “Bigger than Life” — James Mason morphing from genial teacher to full-blown megalomania, thanks to an addiction to cortisone and all in candy-colored Cinemascope — a few more times and pray that some of his other under appreciated classics get a similar treatment (hey, at least an Eclipse set of romance-noirs, and include “Born To Be Bad”).

Also, whatever happened to the Oren Moverman (“The Messenger”) penned “Interrupted” a film about the life of Ray that director Phillip Kaufman (“Henry & June,” “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”) was supposed to helm? Yes, Ray put out a book called, “I Was Interrupted,” but it’s about filmmaking and would be rather pointless to adapt. Moverman probably used the ‘Interrupted’ title as a jumping off point as Ray’s personal life was rather brutal. The filmmaker was bisexual, a heavy drug and alcohol abuser and married his “In a Lonely Place” star Gloria Grahame. After their divorce, Ray caught his ex wife in bed with their son Tony. That’s only scratching the surface and suffice to say there must be lots of tawdry drama involved in that one. Too bad no one asked Moverman about it during press for “The Messenger.”