Nicholas Ray, one of the more iconoclastic Hollywood directors of the 1950s whose biggest hit was the James Dean-starrer REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (1955), was pretty much banished from Hollywood by the early 1960s because of his alcohol addiction and volatile temper. Finding sporadic work in Europe, Ray’s career was soon eclipsed and he died just a decade later. Well, Ray’s star is on the rise again as he is acknowledged as a kind of godfather of the independent film movement. His extensive archives, including letters, diaries, storyboards, still photographs and scripts, have now been bought by the Harry Ransom Center, a humanities research library and museum at the University of Texas at Austin. Further evidence of Ray’s renewed stature will be emphasized when the prestigious Venice Film Festival screens a restored version of his 1970s experimental film WE CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN as a celebration of the centennial of the director’s birth in 1911.
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