Editing Nicholas Ray (section)

==Later career==
[[File:Zsa Zsa Gabor - Ray - 1953.jpg|thumb|Ray with [[Zsa Zsa Gabor]] in 1953]]
Ray found himself increasingly shut out of the Hollywood film industry in the early 1960s, and after ''55 Days at Peking'', he did not direct again until the 1970s, though he continued to try to develop projects while in Europe.

He attempted an adaptation of [[Henrik Ibsen|Ibsen]]'s ''[[The Lady from the Sea|The Lady From the Sea]]'', first with [[Ingrid Bergman]] in mind, and later [[Romy Schneider]]. He optioned a novel, ''Next Stop—Paradise'', by the Polish writer [[Marek Hłasko|Marek Hlasko]]. In late 1963, in Paris, he worked with novelist [[James Jones (author)|James Jones]] on a Western titled ''Under Western Skies'', drawing on ''[[Hamlet]]''.<ref>Eisenschitz, pp. 390–94.</ref>

Moving to London, urged to treat his alcohol and drug abuse, he consulted the physician and psychiatrist, Barrington Cooper,<ref>{{Cite news|date=January 5, 2008|title=Dr. Barrington Cooper: Obituary|work=Times [London, England]|url=https://www.thetimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/article/dr-barrington-cooper-qmx05j0cj36|access-date=September 22, 2021}}</ref> who prescribed script work as "occupational therapy." They formed a production company, Emerald Films, under which they developed two projects that were among the few in Ray's European sojourn to come anywhere near fruition. ''The Doctor and the Devils'' was a screenplay written by [[Dylan Thomas]] (whom Cooper had also treated), inspired by the 1828 case of Dr. [[Robert Knox (surgeon)|Robert Knox]] and murderers [[Burke and Hare murders|Burke and Hare]], who supplied him with corpses for dissection, to be used during medical lessons. Ray struck up a deal with [[Avala Film]], the largest production company in Yugoslavia, to back that film and three others, leading him from London to Zagreb.<ref>[http://www.b92.net/kultura/vesti.php?nav_category=268&yyyy=2012&mm=03&dd=03&nav_id=587625 "'Doktor Rej i đavoli' je legenda"] ;B92, March 3, 2012</ref>  Production was announced as starting on September 1, 1965, amended to October 21, with [[Maximilian Schell]], [[Susannah York]] and [[Geraldine Chaplin]] in the cast, but Ray insisted on rewrites, asking, among others, [[John Fowles]], who declined, and [[Gore Vidal]], who in retrospect wondered why he agreed. Ray tried in vain to enlist US investment, by [[Seven Arts Productions|Seven Arts]] and Warner Bros., on a budget that was mounting, to upwards of $2.5 million. Accounts of the productions failure vary, including the assertion that on the first day of shooting, Ray was out of the country, and the conclusion that he was paralysed by doubt and indecision. Whatever the case, prospects for a new, major Nicholas Ray film dissolved.<ref>Eisenschitz, pp. 394–400.</ref><ref>McGilligan, pp. 445–49.</ref>

[[Dave Wallis]]'s novel, ''[[Only Lovers Left Alive (novel)|Only Lovers Left Alive]]'', was the second property that Ray tried to develop as an Emerald Films venture. As a dystopian parable, in which adults have abandoned society and adolescents have formed gangs to take charge, it might have seemed perfect for the director of ''Rebel Without A Cause'', and, announced in spring 1966, it was to star the [[The Rolling Stones|Rolling Stones]]. According to Cooper, the Stones' US manager [[Allen Klein]] treated him and Ray to lavish visits to New York, and then Los Angeles, for meetings, then "conned" Ray into giving up his rights to the property, with a "lucrative director's contract," and evidently nothing to direct.<ref>Eisenschitz, pp. 400–01.</ref>  (Jim Jarmusch, who befriended Ray a few years before Ray died, later made a film titled ''[[Only Lovers Left Alive]]'' (2013). The story of a young vampire couple — who of course are not young at all — its only connection with the Wallis novel or Ray's project is its title.)

While working with Dr. Cooper, and after, Ray maintained some degree of cash flow by developing and editing scripts, but for films that never came to be.<ref>Eisenschitz, pp. 394, 403.</ref> He made the German island [[Sylt]] his base of operations and imagined projects that might be shot there, including one to star [[Jane Fonda]] and [[Paul Newman]], titled ''Go Where You Want, Die As You Must'', a production that would also demand 2,000 extras.<ref>McGilligan, pp. 452.</ref>  While in Europe, he attracted some of the current generation of filmmakers. He had been introduced to [[Volker Schlöndorff]] by Hanne Axmann, who had starred in Schlöndorff's first film, and Ray brokered a deal to sell his second, ''[[Degree of Murder|Mord und Totschlag]]'' (1969), to [[Universal Pictures]], pocketing about one-third of the money as his fee and for expenses.<ref>Eisenschitz, p. 402.</ref> When in Paris, he sometimes stayed with [[Barbet Schroeder]], whose production company tried to find backing for one or another of Ray's projects.<ref>Eisenschitz, pp. 403–04.</ref>  There, in the wake of the May 1968 demonstrations, he collaborated with [[:fr:Jean-Pierre Bastid|Jean-Pierre Bastid]] and producer Henry Lange to shoot a three-part, one-hour film, which he later titled ''Wha-a-at?'', one of several projects, concerning contemporary young people during a time of questioning, rebellion and revolt that never came to be. Similarly, Ray enticed Schroeder's friend [[Stéphane Tchalgadjieff]] to raise funding for ''L'Evadé'' (''The Substitute''), a story about mixed and assumed identities, and Tchalgadjieff raised a half-million dollars, only for Ray to manoeuvre him out, and for nothing to emerge from the enterprise.<ref>Eisenschitz, pp. 404–406.</ref>

Ray's reputation for youth-oriented films led Ellen Ray (unrelated to him) and her partners in Dome Films to solicit him to direct her screenplay about a young man on trial for possession of marijuana, which became the reason for Ray's return to the United States in November 1969. Instead of ''The Defendant'', however, Ray embarked on projects concerning young Americans in turbulent times, notably the [[Chicago Seven]], forming a production company called Leo Seven, and drawing some financial interest from [[Michael Butler (producer)|Michael Butler]], producer of the hit stage musical ''[[Hair (musical)|Hair]]''. Shooting material for ''Conspiracy'' on almost every current gauge of film stock, from 35mm to Super 8, he accumulated documentary sequences, dramatized reconstructions of the trial, and collage-like multiple-image footage. In order to continue, he financed production by selling paintings that he owned, and sought backing from anyone he could.<ref>Eisenschitz, pp. 408–22.</ref>

Migrating from Chicago to New York City, and then, at Dennis Hopper's invitation, New Mexico, in 1971 Ray landed in upstate New York, and started a new career as a teacher, accepting an appointment at [[Binghamton University|Harpur College]], in Binghamton.<ref name="live fast"/> There he found a cast and crew, students who were eager and imaginative, but also inexperienced. Devoted to the idea of learning by doing, Ray and his class embarked on a major, feature-length project. Rather than the strict division of labour characteristic of his Hollywood career, Ray devised a rotation in which a student would take on different roles behind or in front of the camera.<ref>Eisenschitz, p. 430.</ref> Similar to the Chicago Seven project — some footage from which he incorporated into the new film — the Harpur film, which came to be titled ''We Can't Go Home Again'', used material shot on numerous gauges of film, as well as video that was later processed and manipulated with a synthesizer provided by [[Nam June Paik]]. The pictures were combined into multiple-image constructions using as many as five projectors, and refilming the images in 35mm from a screen.<ref>Eisenschitz, pp. 440, 445.</ref> Two documentaries provide records of Ray's methods and the work of his class:  the near-contemporary biography, ''I'm A Stranger Here Myself: A Portrait of Nicholas Ray'' (1975),<ref>Helpern, David Jr. ''I'm a Stranger Here Myself: A Portrait of Nicholas Ray''. (1975). ''In a Lonely Place''. Criterion Collection DVD/Blu-ray 810. (2016).</ref> directed by David Helpern Jr., and Susan Ray's retrospective account, ''Don't Expect Too Much'' (2011).<ref>Ray, Susan (director, producer, writer). ''Don't Expect Too Much''. (2011).  ''We Can't Go Home Again'' DVD/Blu-ray.  Oscilloscope Films 39. (2012).</ref>

In the spring of 1972, Ray was asked to show some footage from the film at a conference. The audience was shocked to see footage of Ray and his students smoking [[marijuana]] together.<ref name="live fast"/> An early version of ''We Can't Go Home Again'' was shown at the [[Cannes Film Festival]] in 1973, to an abiding lack of interest.<ref>Eisenschitz, p. 446.</ref><ref>[http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/films/we-can-t-go-home-again WE CAN'T GO HOME AGAIN - Festival de Cannes]</ref> Ray shot additional scenes in Amsterdam, shortly after the Cannes screening, in New York in January 1974, and two months later in San Francisco, and edited a second version, with the hopes of attracting a distributor in 1976. It remained uncompleted and without distribution at Ray's death, in 1979, but some prints of the 1973 version were made and screened at festivals and retrospectives through the 1980s. A restored version, based on the 1973 cut, was released on DVD and Blu-ray in 2011, by Oscilloscope Films.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Ray|first=Susan|date=March 2013|title=To the Viewer: On Nicholas Ray's 'We Can't Go Home Again'|url=https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2013/feature-articles/to-the-viewer-on-nicholas-rays-we-cant-go-home-again/#10|journal=Senses of Cinema|volume=66}}</ref>

In the spring of 1973, Ray's contract at Binghamton was not renewed. Over the next couple of years, he relocated several times, trying to raise money and continue work on the film, before he returned to New York City. There, he continued to prepare script materials and try to develop film projects, the most viable of which was ''City Blues'', before the production collapsed.<ref>Eisenschitz, pp. 458–59.</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|date=August 11, 1976|title=Nick Ray 'Blues'|journal=Variety|volume=284|pages=3}}</ref>  He was also able to continue teaching acting and directing, at the [[Lee Strasberg Institute]] and [[New York University]], where his teaching assistant was graduate student [[Jim Jarmusch]].

Ray directed two short films in the 1970s. One, ''The Janitor'', was a segment of the feature-length ''Wet Dreams'', also known as ''Dreams of Thirteen'' (1974). Within a collection of shorts, most of which satirized pornography, Ray's was also a very personal film in which he cast himself in the double role of a caretaker and a preacher, and used visual techniques comparable to those in his previous film.<ref>Eisenschitz, p. 451.</ref>  The second, ''Marco'' (1978),<ref>Krohn, Bill (2014). "The Class: Interview with Nicholas Ray," in ''Lonely Places, Dangerous Ground'', ed. Rybin and Scheibel. pp. 256–58.</ref> derived from one of his Strasberg Institute classes and was based on the first few pages of a recent novel of the same name, by [[Curtis Bill Pepper]]. Ray's film was included in the 2011 DVD/Blu-ray release of ''We Can't Go Home Again''.

Having contracted cancer and facing mortality, Ray and his son Tim conceived a documentary about a father-son relationship. That idea, and Ray's hunger to continue working, led to the involvement of German filmmaker [[Wim Wenders]], who had previously employed Ray as an actor, in a small but notable role in ''[[The American Friend]]'' (1977). Their collaboration, ''[[Lightning Over Water]]'' (1980), also known as ''Nick's Film'', uses documentary footage and dramatic constructions, juxtaposing film and video. It charts their passage in making a film, as well as recording events of Ray's last months, including directing a stage scene with actor [[Gerry Bamman]], and directing and acting a scene with [[Ronee Blakley]] (then married to Wenders), inspired by ''[[King Lear]]''. The film was completed after Ray's death, in June 1979.<ref>Eisenschitz, pp. 477–87.</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last1=Wenders|first1=Wim|title=Nick's Film/Lightning Over Water|last2=Sievernich|first2=Chris|publisher=Zweitausendeins|year=1981|location=Frankfurt am Main}}</ref>