Nicholas Ray at the Chateau Marmont: We Can't Go Home Again

New York: N.p., 1973. Archive of photographs and negatives, shot by and belonging to photographer Andy Romanoff, of director Nicholas Ray at work on his collaborative, experimental film "We Can't Go Home Again" at the Chateau Marmont in 1973. In addition to the material, sale of the archive includes complete ownership of republication and reproduction rights.

In 1971, after nearly a decade outside the Hollywood establishment, Ray secured a two year teaching position at SUNY Binghamton's newly created film department. There, he began working with students on "We Can't Go Home Again," an experimental film in which Ray and the students play themselves, and which used a variety of film formats, found footage, cinema verite, and experimental editing techniques to explore the nature of teaching, the generation gap, and the art of filmmaking itself. Beginning in 1972, Ray began screening versions of the film at festivals, while continuing to edit it with the students. In preparation for the 1973 Cannes Film Festival, where the film would screen out of competition, Ray and several students rented a bungalow at the Chateau Marmont, where the director had once rehearsed "Rebel Without a Cause." Introduced through a friend, Andy Romanoff worked as a personal assistant to the director for the two weeks he was in California. It was during this time that Romanoff shot the photos in this archive, showing Ray and his students at work.

Unfortunately, after screening at Cannes, the film's experimental nature caused some controversy within the SUNY Binghamton film department, and Ray's teaching contract was not renewed. He would continue to work on the film until his death in 1979, with the most definitive version being completed in 1976. The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray by Oscilloscope Laboratories (OSC-039) in 2012.

Romanoff misplaced the negatives shortly after his two weeks at Chateau Marmont with Ray, and they remained lost until he discovered them in a pile of papers in 2011. He struck 10 of the 12 photos at that time, but other than a single, small exhibition in 2012, and a couple of images appearing briefly a montage sequence in "Don't Expect Too Much," Susan Ray's documentary on the making of the film, they remain largely unknown to the public, and have never been published.

Nicholas Ray's importance to film is nearly inestimable. His films, a number of which are rightly considered classics, profoundly influenced both the French New Wave and New Hollywood Cinema, including directors Martin Scorsese, Wim Wenders, and Jean-Luc Godard, who once exclaimed in an interview: "the cinema is Nicholas Ray."

However, Ray, a drug addict and alcoholic, was gradually shut off from the Hollywood film industry through the late 50s and early 60s. After collapsing on the set of "55 Days at Peking" (1963) and being removed from the production, Ray would never direct a major studio film again. Any material from his post-Hollywood life and career is rare.

The archive includes:

Ten photographs of Nicholas Ray and his students at work, each approximately 15 x 15 inches, archivally matted and framed to 21.5 x 22 inches.

12 negatives, cut into six strips of two each, containing the ten photos plus two others from the same shoot.

One Polaroid, 4.5 x 3.5 inches, of Ray and a few students at in their room at the hotel.

All the material is in Fine condition, and hi-res scans of each of the photos are included, along with the Blu-ray release of the film together with Susan Ray's documentary "Don't Expect Too Much."

For more details, please inquire.

[Book #134847]