Customer Reviews

Nick's Film - Lightning Over Water

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1 star:		(3)

 

 

Wow. Watching Nick Ray die of cancer is not an easy thing to watch. Still, he had the desire to make a final film and even had an idea to make a movie about the painter from Wenders' "American Friend" sail to China in search of a cure for cancer. Given Ray's state of health, such a film was unrealistic, but Wim Wenders did rise to the occasion and help Ray complete this movie which ends up being about his own death.

Parts of it started out as being scripted, so the result is a part fiction/part documentary look at Ray's final days. One cannot help but be moved by such an intimate look at Ray and those who love him surrounding him.

The film transfer on this DVD is far superior to the old Pacific Arts videotape and laserdisc. Those older releases were not even made up of the proper cut of the film, so people now have a chance to see the definitive version of the movie (in it's correct aspect ratio) likely for the first time.

Ronnee Blakley's songs shine on the soundtrack and Wenders' commentary track (done in the Fall of 2002) is very insightful.

This movie can hardly be described as a happy film, but it is rare to see death addressed so honestly and with such care as it is in this movie. This is a great DVD.

An intimate portrayal of a brilliant artist's last days that manages to convey a sense of love and hope, without ghoulishness or maudlin sentiment. It's clear the two men not only admire each other's work, but are genuinely fond of each other. Ray comes off as remarkably gutsy and forthright in his predicament, and Wenders is the best of friends-someone quietly, patiently, willingly there for the ailing Ray, and who records the fading of his light as a final, heart-felt affirmation of who Ray is, and of all he did.

Nick Ray is the director of REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, JOHNNY GUITAR, THEY LIVE BY NIGHT, and THE LUSTY MEN, among other movies. In 1979, still a heavy chain-smoker, Nick Ray is dying of lung cancer. As a final wish, he wants to make one last movie, and places it in the hands of German New Wave director Wim Wenders. The result is LIGHTNING OVER WATER, a documentary record of Wender's complete failure to come up with a film about anything other than the dying of Nick Ray.

Wenders, who was concurrently at work on a project in California which required him to interrupt the making of LIGHNTING OVER WATER, basically moved into Nick Ray's New York apartment, with no other object than to film Nick Ray dying. But the two men were at cross-purposes. While Wenders wanted to film a documentary capturing the death of Nick Ray, Nick ray himself wanted to make a fictional (yet semi-autobiographical) film about a dying painter. It is sad to see the old man realize during the making of the film that it is actually a movie about himself dying. Wenders hadn't a clue as to where to take the film (he admits as much in his director's commentary, a DVD extra). Basically, the camera was just there to be with Nick in his final days.

The situation in the film is summed up in an exchange between Wenders and Ray in which they try to decide what the movie is going to be about, in order to give it direction.



Wim Wenders: I guess we just go on making this film?

Nick Ray: Well, I have one action, which is to regain my self-image . . . And for you, you have to select your own action, that which is closest to you.

Wenders: My action is going to be defined by yours. My action is going to be defined by your facing death.

Ray: Well, that would mean you're stepping on my back.



If this somewhat aimless documentary can be said to be about anything, it's about Wim Wenders stepping on Nick Ray's back while Nick Ray dies. (Nick passed away during the making of the film.) Having brought a mass of insecurities to the project, Wenders unloaded them on Nick, even confessing at the outset that he's afraid the film might end up merely exploiting Nick and his frail/vulnerable/naked state. In my opinion, that is actually what ended up happening. Worse, I feel that Wenders subtly tormented Nick's final days by constantly--and annoyingly--pointing out to Nick that he (Nick) is dying, as though Nick needed to be reminded of it every second of the day.

About fifteen minutes into the film, Wenders tells Nick, "I didn't come to talk about dying, but we might have to." The problem is that just about everything that comes out of Wender's mouth basically rubs Nick's nose in "mortality." In contrast, Nick still wants to live. Even though he's riddled with cancer and has only weeks left, Nick amazingly still manages to get excited about his life. Even in his final days during the making of the film, Nick manages a lecture at Vassar College (the full lecture appears as a DVD extra) and is hard at work directing a stage monologue based on Kafka.

Wenders constantly throws a wet blanket over Ray's good moods, reminding Ray of illness and impending death. Near the end of the documentary, Nick tells Wenders: "You're making me sick to my stomach, you realize that? You are. I don't know why. . . I am sick, and you are making me sick." Nick died soon after. Let me echo Nick and say that Wenders made me sick to my stomach also with this aimless movie. I feel that Wenders did not do Nick--or the project--justice, that he refused to really listen to what Nick wanted the movie to be about. Or perhaps Nick was just asking too much. In either case, I found the result exploitative rather than inspirational.

In 2002, Wenders recorded a commentary. The DVD gives you the option of watching the film while Wenders comments on it. What struck me most about the commentary was the complete lack of acknowledgment by Wenders of the way he adversely affected Nick throughout the making of the movie.

I came into this one knowing nothing about Wim Wenders or Nicholas Ray. Nicholas Ray was apparently one of the great directors, but in this film he's dying of cancer and still smoking cigarettes. The vibe I quickly pick up on is two fellow artists who always reached for greatness rather than just phoning it in.

It's kinda quirky, funny most of the time, powerfully moving in spots which gain strength from the unusual bits surrounding them, occasionally confusing but never boring or off-putting, and on the whole just a very watchable and memorable documentary. Moments of extreme lucidity by Nicholas Ray make the mumbly bits of his deterioration more striking.

It made me glad I had some unwatched Wim Wenders DVDs in the house and it made me want to watch something by Nicholas Ray. REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, maybe, which I've always heard is a classic.

The more that I watch of the 1970s New German Cinema (Das Neue Kino) the more manifest it becomes that, despite the usual namedropping of Wim Wenders, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Werner Herzog as a trio, it truly was only a one man movement, and Herzog is and was so far above and cinematically dominant over his two rivals that to speak of the lesser two in the same breath as Herzog is like mentioning the Gawain poet whilst going on of John Donne's or William Shakespeare's poetic skills.
This is abundantly clear in lightweight films like the 1980 pseudo-documentary Lightning Over Water, directed by Wenders- with a meaningless co-credit to his idol Nicholas Ray, whose death is central to the film, and who, along with Wenders, is credited as a co-writer. In a sense this equivalence is apropos, since Wenders and Ray are both, at best, second tier filmic talents. After Johnny Guitar and Rebel Without A Cause- the James Dean teenaged sudser, are there any real films of note that Ray directed? And, neither of the two films mentioned is anywhere near greatness. The only reason that this misshapen mess of a film was made was because Ray was something of an idol to Wenders, and dying of cancer, not long after the two men met filming The American Friend a few years earlier.
Yet, none of this camaraderie nor artistic affinity comes through in the film for we see only one brief movie clip, from Ray's Lusty Men, we get no background on Ray's life, and all we are subjected to, during the film's VERY LONG ninety minutes, is Ray's wheezing, hacking, spitting, whining, and assorted other bodily noises as he lies about, waiting to die, as Wenders narrates that this or that moment made him feel bad. Add to that conversations that are supposed to be `real' yet are clearly not a part of the `internal documentary,' and some poorly acted and staged scenes that are meant to illuminate the tale of Wenders' trip to Ray's bedside, while also trying and failing to break down narrative conventions, and you have a genuine disaster.... The film was shot both in film and video, but this mixed media adds nothing of consequence to the meaning nor import of what it captures. I guess the video adds a bit of realism to Ray's decline, but the fact is that there really is nothing here besides such a minor addition. Let me sum up the film this way: imagine sitting at a funeral home and listening to strangers ramble on about the neighbors and old friends of a loved one that you know nothing about. And to top it off, the storytellers are dreadful at their craft, and furthermore never complete any of the tales. Worse, there is no connection to the audience for they are telling tales only they know anything about. Thus the viewer feels no empathy for Ray nor Wenders. Even more annoyingly, there are some shots that are so amateurish and badly composed that one has to wonder if Wenders deliberately screwed up his film to try to `show' that he was so upset that he could not do his job properly; in a sense employing faux amateurism to try to cynically manipulate viewers into jerking tears over his dead friend.
Regardless of whether or not this is the case, in the end, all the manifestly feigned experimentalism is just dull. Not even some well composed shots of the bygone Twin Towers can elicit genuine emotional responses. Then comes the penultimate scene of Ray, near death, lecturing Wenders, who inexplicably is lying in bed in a fake hospital scene. This scene is just painful to watch, for Ray's out of his mind and merely rambling. Wenders shows this for seven minutes and the result is borderline pornography, full exploitation, and plain old sadistic, because nothing is gained. I felt a minor anger and contempt for Wenders during this, but it passed, as all else in this empty vessel does.
Yet, did Wenders really think that this sequence would illumine death- Ray's or any others? Apparently so, which only demands that the flaw of pretension be added to this film's artistic sins, which include treacly sermonizing, such as when Wenders asks, in all apparent seriousness, such banal queries as whether or not telling the truth is dull or exciting. All in all, Lightning Over Water is a bad film, an inconsequential and failed extension of the documentary form, a weak statement on art and/or death, and not even a good record of the late 1970s fashion nor culture. It is basically a pointless vanity project that never coheres, for it has no narrative nor emotional cement to hold its flimsy structure together. This fact provokes only two real questions- who was more vain, Ray or Wenders? And did the right filmmaker die?

Although in obvious pain and near death, Nick is badgered and filmed in what should have been private moments with the people closest to him or not, at their descretion. Any "stranger" who gets pleasure out of watching an elderly man who is in the last stages of Cancer and counting his remaining minutes should evaluate their interest in the macabe.

I felt there is enough evidence of Elder Abuse to put the director and crew away for the prodding and torture they put Nick through to make this poorly made documentary. Had the dying man been payed by an actor, I might have been interested.

Watching the actual terminally ill person die was NOT entertainment. What's next... cameras in Hospices to film group sorrow and death?

They say when your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. In that way, it makes sense that when film director Nicholas Ray ("Rebel Without a Cause", "King of Kings") learned he had terminal cancer, he decided to make a movie about it. He asked his friend, German film director Wim Wenders ("Wings of Desire", "The Buena Vista Social Club") to assist him.
Together, they do make a film, "Lightening Over Water" (1980).
Ray wants to make a fictional film about a painter. A painter with cancer without much time left to live. This painter achieved great fame and wealth with his early paintings, but the painting he made in his later years would not sell. So the painter robs his own paintings from museums and replaces them with "forgeries", his own paintings recreated. Really, the artist is trying to recapture his youth, his early acclaim, and his self-esteem.
Wenders assesses the physical condition of his friend, and knows that such a project would be impossible. He agrees to make a film with him, a documentary of Ray's last days. But it is not a pure documentary. Along with footage of Ray's day to day health struggles, conversations between the directors and such outings as a lecture about film that Ray gives at Vassar University, there are fictional vignettes added (such as Ray playing a scene as a modern King Lear.) Some of the `documentary footage' seems staged as well.
As Ray approaches death, he seems concerned about proving that his life and work had significance. It's something that many of us wonder about.
Wenders wonders if he is helping or hurting his friend with the draining work of writing, directing and `acting' in a film when his strength is depleted. He wonders if he is putting the film itself before his friend. (I don't think that dilemma is unique. I think there is often a danger in ministry of designing programs to help people, and then we become more concerned with the programs than with the people they were designed to help.)
There are humorous and tender moments in the film. But ultimately, it made me sad. For Ray faced death without reference to the hope from in Jesus Christ. It could be that Ray did have some kind of religious faith; but it that is so, it was not a part of the film.
Ray seemed to face death with no assurance that there was meaning to his life, or more to hope for after death.
Recently, the great theologian and writer, John Stott passed away. And I was struck watching the film how different this man's passing would have been. I just finished reading John Stott's book, "Why I Am A Christian" (Inter Varsity Press, 2003). Stott argues that the very human needs of significance and transcendence can only be met in a relationship to Jesus Christ.
Stott argues that all of us fear death (he quotes Woody Allen who said, "I'm not afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens.") Further, Stott argues that no one who is in fear, is truly free; only in Christ, in His resurrection, can be found hope of overcoming death and ultimate extinction.
("Lightening Over Water" is not rated, but it does include strong language and brief nudity.)

Alive egomaniac Wim Wenders meets now dead loser Nick Ray.

Loser Nick Ray down and out, after a long time of not directing, so he was very happy to have a movie nerd make a documentary about him ready to drop dead.

Wim Wenders such a nerd, adding an amaturish touch just by being in this movie; akin to Peter Bogdonovich in TARGETS with nearly-dead Boris Karloff, who was walking about with a cane. Wenders even made a movie with Roger Corman, THE STATE OF THINGS. This movie has the look of a typical low-budget NYC 1970s movie; SAM'S SONG, starring Robert Deniro is one of them.

The director's commentary for this dvd is cruicial---and a lot better than the visuals, since the dvd commentary says a lot more than the theatrical movie. Wenders is a lot better at shooting bull than making a movie, which comes in hand when you have to con some producer into putting the money up for such junk.

Wenders even finds time to put his then-wife, Ronee Blakely, in the movie, singing the title song. And then there's Ray's young wife, whatever she found in such an old loser like Ray; she even gets to sing.

No film nerd decades after this movie was made cares about Ray, just like decades from now nobody will care about Paris Hilton or Kim Kardasian when they eventually appear in a similar documentary.