Nicholas Ray

Nicholas Ray born Raymond Nicholas Kienzle 7 August 1911 16 June 1979 was an American film director best known for the films Rebel Without a Cause and Johnny Guitar Described by the Harvard Film Archive as Hollywoods last romantic and one of postwar American cinemas supremely gifted and ultimately tragic filmmakers Ray was considered an iconoclastic auteur director who often clashed with the Hollywood studio system of the time but would prove highly influential to future generations of filmmakers His bestknown work is the 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause starring James Dean He is appreciated for many narrative features produced between 1947 and 1963 including They Live By Night 1948 In A Lonely Place 1950 Johnny Guitar 1954 Bigger Than Life 1956 and King of Kings 1961 as well as an experimental work produced throughout the 1970s titled We Cant Go Home Again which was unfinished at the time of Rays death During his lifetime Ray was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Rebel Without a Cause twice for the Golden Lion for Bigger Than Life 1956 and Bitter Victory 1957 and a Palme dOr for The Savage Innocents 1960 Three of his films were ranked by Cahiers du Cinéma in their Annual Top 10 Lists Rays compositions within the CinemaScope frame and use of color are particularly well regarded and he was an important influence on the French New Wave with JeanLuc Godard famously writing in a review of Bitter Victory there is cinema And the cinema is Nicholas Ray