In the Time of Nick

The following are two extracts from an essay by David Cairns on Ray's We Can't Go Home Again:

'Ray was too smart, too interested in the process of drama, too sensitive and too internally conflicted to commit himself anymore to a single choice. All avenues had to be explored...'

'Perhaps it could never have been finished, and perhaps that's inherent in its form. It's not a comfortable film to watch. It goes beyond a mere head-fuck. It's a head-cluster-fuck. The multiple images suggest the POV of a dying fly with a migraine, its life flashing before its eyes. Coming after the immaculate imagery of Rebel Without a Cause or The Savage Innocents, it's enough to induce heartache and depression, but at the same time there's a wild optimism in the desperate clutching at some new form, new dramatic language, a transcendent rebirth of cinema, something that can't be articulated by the artist or even suggested by the raw footage unspooling before us, except as a dream that is visibly striving to come true.'