Nicholas Ray's Bigger Than Life

There was a screening of this in NYC last summer in a great theater -- what a treat it was to see it on the big screen. Excellent film!

James Mason's speech at the parent-teacher night is a keeper, along with the Goldwater-Reagan type amenning his mania.

This weekend at the FF.

One of the fanboys @ The Criterion forum wrote to them and got a seemingly postive reply that this is coming soon from the CC.

I WISH I could watch this.

Have you seen it before? I saw it back in the mid-eighties at the old Thalia theater in a double bill with Johnny Guitar but not since. I guess it doesn't really show up on TCM.

All right, got a ticket for 5:40 tonight.

OK, please go and see this if you can.

really wanna post the best line out of this as a little reminiscipackage for everyone who's seen it, but it would totally ruin the joy of hearing it for the first time for everyone who hasn't. you know the one i mean though.

I believe that's the one that got partially swallowed up by a splice at the end.

Oh no, that didn't happen. I was thinking this the In A Lonely Place thread.

SSSSPPPOOOILEEERRRRR

it's the one where he's reading the story from the book and someone points out that he has neglected to consider the ending, and so he points out that the ending was not the proper resolution to the way the parable should have played out

Ha.

did anyone catch they live by night? so good

Nope, but going to see Wind Across The Everglades tonight.

You may laugh at my blindspot, but I never really got James Mason until I saw this. I think that when he got to Hollywood he did some very broad roles that they might just as well have given to Herbert Marshall, but here he is really intense. Looking forward to seeing some of the Mason Most Noir's coming up next week as a subseries of the Brit Noir.

ed buscombe's commentary track for the BFI region 2 ed of this is pretty gd

SSSSPPPOOOILEEERRRRR

it's the one where he's reading the story from the book and someone points out that he has neglected to consider the ending, and so he points out that the ending was not the proper resolution to the way the parable should have played out

― the heart is a lonely hamster (schlump), Saturday, July 25, 2009 10:39 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

just watched this for the 1st time & schlump otm, best moment

Really appreciate the effort that went into wrapping that spoiler in so many layers of protective coating that no one who hadn't actually seen the movie would know what was being spoiled

wasn't going to admit this here because it seems like not acknowledging it will allow me to ignore the onset of memory loss, but, on seeing that reposted i actually couldn't remember the quote it referred to. was that well protected. have dug it up, now.

re: bigger than life, upthread, perhaps my fav ray, i remember the male lead standing up & talking about it after the filmforum screening a couple of years back. spoke v fondly of nick & the production and then sounded totally bemused by ray's later epics, said he couldn't relate to it at all when ray was making grand pictures w/big stars in china.

The DVD is gorgeous -- the colors look better than they did in the fifties, I'm sure. I'm sorry to say the movie is quite uneven: a mix of tones that doesn't work, and part of the problem is the miscast Mason.

I agree with James Harvey that the original documentary-realism of the original script that producer Mason commissioned and Ray discarded would have been a more interesting film.

I think only Mason can make "GOD WAS WRONG" iconic.

Holy shit this movie.

yh srsly

The whole thing is one heartbreak after another as JMs mind dissolves. Even the nominally happy ending is harsh in how this episode has broken the family and will have ramifications for generations.

wish hollywood came out with stuff this tonally daring, this jawdropping in the present day

present-day rep theater audiences laugh at this movie, so there's yr answer

Want it kinda a flop at the time tho?

And why is it laughed at now? Is it considered too earnest, too heavy handed, what? I'm not a film critic/cinephile and maybe I'm a simpleton but I found it immensely powerful (just finished watching it tho so maybe I'll be less impressed once it sinks in)

we laugh at what we do not fully comprehend. james mason going literally insane elicits nervous giggling because hey - this isn't supposed to happen, right - what even is this happening - it isn't really happening. modern audiences unable to countenance such audacious character development

idk i'm being v trenchant there

a certain smug sector at NYC rep houses laughs at everything made before 1975

few Ray films were massive hits in their day (Rebel Without a Cause and, ah, King of Kings exceptions), so contemporary audiences had trouble with their sudden tonal shifts too

Xp The not supposed to happen factor, that respectable professional family men are meant to hold their shit together, and the impossibility of that facade and the dissonance it creates, that's kinda the lynchpin of the movie for me. The impossibility and damage of the patriarchy and the powerlessness of all those involved, including the patrician, piles up on top of each other until all that's left is a fantasy of a happy ending. Cortisone is almost a macguffin.

Myopic smugness is never a good look. Bad show NYC.

seen any Sirk films? You'll like him too.

No, not at all. And this is my first ray so I'm up for seeing more of him. What would you recommend?

All That Heaven Allows, touching on similar themes, and Imitation of Life. Hell, watch'em all!

Thanks, I'll check em out.

Wondering when it will be time to watch this again.

this was as breathless and hysterical as Fuller's Shock Corridor, but I liked it more

Wondering when it will be time to watch this again.

Trout Fishing in America.

“Can you tell me one thing that was said or done by anyone here tonight that was funny, startling, imaginative?”

Music by David Raksin!

“Third string sub to hero in twenty seconds. Real last minute stuff!”

Barbara Rush was married to Jeffrey Hunter for five years.

Marilyn Monroe was supposed to have a cameo but she got nervous and they couldn’t get a good take so they gave up on the idea.

Cool retro graphic around minute 26 of a timeline of PAIN vs. CORTISONE levels.

“Hand me the yogurt, the black strap molasses and the brewer’s yeast.”

Apparently a reference to
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5OGcLluydc

One of Walter Matthau’s earliest film roles, if not his debut.

“Oh Ed, this is so expensive. I buy my things at Madame A’s frock shop.”

“Oh, I’ve used up all the hot water. That half-pint heater really has to be babied.”

Great movie

I just read something that said James Mason, who also produced, had originally wanted a more documentary-like treatment and felt that what was done sensationalized and cheapened the material. He also felt his accent wasn’t right. On the other hand, even though he, like pretty much every one else who had crossed paths with Nicholas Ray, thought the director was difficult, he also thought he was a great talent and considered working with him again.

“One more kettle will do.”
“You’re not in the hospital now!”

At some point early on the studio wanted Richard Widmark in the lead(!)

Actor who played the son, Christopher Olsen, was also Doris Day’s son in The Man Who Knew Too Much.

“Every year, whole forests are cut down to supply the paper for these grotesque daubs. And we coo over them as though they were Van Goghs…or Rembrandts.”

Widmark would've pulled it off imo

Yeah, probably:

Still, I love Mason’s performance in this.

“And furthermore, this isn’t the first time you’ve gone out your way to annoy me with your jingle-jangle in, jingle-jangle out. Why do you do it?”

There’s some kind of pomposity that Mason is able to portray like nobody else.

It was all just a kooky, Cortisone-induced dream!

A HANDFUL OF HOPE THAT BECAME A FISTFUL OF HELL!

lol @ Mason thinking Ray was the director for a documentarian's approach

Yes, exactly.

And, yeah, Widmark could've pulled it off. James Stewart too.

I’m getting most of this stuff from Patrick McGilligan’s Nicholas Ray bio. Not sure what else is out there. Also learned a tiny bit about the cinematographer, who I hadn’t been aware of before but has worked on some well-known pictures that I like.

Joseph MacDonald: My Darling Clementine, Viva Zapata!, Niagara, Broken Lance.

Pickup on South Street too!

Guess we're the only ones up early after a few hours' sleep.

Yes. Exactly.

Hope I don’t have a psychotic break due to the sleep deprivation like you-know-who in the movie.

People in the UK watching the World Cup but brain can’t quite do it this early.

Maybe will take a break from this thread for a bit to catch a few more winks but also want to mention that there was a Clifford Odets involvement in this film that needs to be discussed.