alr

Lightning Over Water

Free Admission
Directed by Nicholas Ray and Wim Wenders.
Germany/Sweden, 1980, digital video, color, 91 min.

Made while Ray was dying of cancer, Wenders’ penetrating tribute film, co-directed by Ray, ultimately reveals itself to be as complex as its subject, combining elements of the home movie, documentary, essay and fiction film in an effort to pay homage to Ray and the ideas that have been the focus of his life and career – the cinema, father-son relationships, the quest of the isolated individual to carve out a space for themselves in the world. With its jarring and unsettling images of a visibly stricken Ray, the film, which concludes with Ray’s wake aboard a ship in the East River, is a melancholy and heartbreaking farewell to one of the great American directors.

Part of film series

Read more

Nicholas Ray. Hollywood's Last Romantic

Current and upcoming film series

Read more

Jean-Pierre Bekolo, 2024 McMillan-Stewart Fellow

Read more

The Practice (and Other Works) By Martín Rejtman

Read more

Chronicles of Changing Times. The Cinema of Edward Yang

Read more
Gene Hackman crouched beside a toilet with audio equipment

From the HFA Collection...

Read more

Being In a Place. Rediscovering Margaret Tait