American Stranger

the long version

Most famous for his film Rebel Without a Cause, Nicholas Ray has since been canonized as a "rebel auteur" and celebrated for seeking a personal vision and signature style under the industrial pressures of Classical Hollywood during its late studio period. In American Stranger, Will Scheibel reconstructs how Ray's reputation in postwar cinema developed over time. Drawing on biographical legends, interviews, film reviews, articles in both national newspapers and international film magazines, and star promotion and publicity, Scheibel examines the contexts in which Ray's reputation was constructed. These include the consolidation of director-based film criticism and the rise of film studies as an academic discipline; star performances and personifications of the rebel male in Ray's films; the counterculture in which Ray promoted himself as a teacher and worked as a political avant-gardist; and the art cinemas of Jean-Luc Godard, Wim Wenders, and Jim Jarmusch, each of whom were influenced by Ray. In addition to Rebel Without a Cause, Scheibel also analyzes such classic films as The Lusty Men and In a Lonely Place, as well as the less-examined, non Hollywood films, We Can't Go Home Again and Lightning Over Water. -- Adapted from the dust jacket.