We Can Not Go Back Home Again: Film Review

NEW You are able to - An anti-mainstream final work from Hollywood renegade Nicholas Ray, the excavated feature We Are Able To't Go Back Home Again is definitely an artifact which will interest students from the '70s avant-garde and hardcore Ray fans but puzzle almost everybody else. Sincere notice around the fest circuit and airings on Turner Classic Movies usually supplies a modest PR boost for eventual DVD/digital release.our editor recommendsNicholas Ray: Digital rebel Having a CameraThe Venice Film Festival to Recognition Nicholas RayNicholas Ray retrospective starts This summer 24Oscilloscope release a Nicholas Ray's Last Film 'We Can't Go Back Home Again' Although it is marketed like a film through the director of Digital rebel With No Cause and Johnny Guitar, onscreen credits the film is "by us" -- and also the claim of collective authorship fits a piece whose narrative, such because it is, is thin and scattered enough to possess been sewn together from bull periods and publish-'60s political positions. The film emerges from interplay between your wizened, fight-damaged Ray and the 1971 class at NY's Binghamton College. Early moments make a confrontational meeting between your two, and subsequent material, zigzagging between scripted dialogues and self-conscious behind-the-moments footage, focuses largely around the curiosity each feels for that other. Most of the youthful filmmakers are, not surprisingly, pretty poor stars, plus some recruits (just like a journalist roped into serving as a shoot's soundman) display similarly low aptitude for that technical finish of things. Audiences wishing to suss out an overarching story is going to be disappointed, finding rather a type of fictionalized self-portrait of figures looking for meaning throughout among America's most confused eras. More interesting, though equally time-capule-ant, would be the movie's stylistic affectations, most of which endure much better than others. Individual moments frequently alternate between conventional shots while some which have been heavily altered using primitive video effects at other moments, sloppy noodling on keyboards creates a proto-electronica soundtrack. Most significant may be the picture's multi-screen format, by which static photographs function as a cryptic frame around a black central area where moments overlap one another aimlessly, frequently pairing staged footage with documentary or stock images of political protest. This kitchen-sink experimentation may befuddle most audiences, however it will probably enable them to sustain curiosity about a story that will otherwise lose them inside a half-hour. Venue: NY Film Festival (Oscilloscope) Production Company: Nicholas Ray Foundation Cast: Nicholas Ray, Richie Bock, Tom Farrell, Jill Ganon, Jane Heymann, Leslie Wynne Levinson Director-producer: Nichola Ray Screenwriters: Nicholas Ray, Susan Ray Principal Crew: Steve Anker, Richard Bock, Peer Bode, Charlie Bornstein, Doug Cohen, Danny Fisher, Stanley Liu, Luke Oberle, Helene Kaplan Wright No rating, 95 minutes Nicholas Ray