I recently read an excellent book, Live Fast, Die Young: The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause, and I was just as fascinated by the general life of that film’s director, Nicholas Ray, as I was in what went into making the film. Ray was a madman and possibly a genius, but also an alcoholic, drug addict and sexual libertine who couldn’t keep his life under control.
A couple of filmmakers have been interested in making a movie about Ray’s life, but it looks like Philip Kaufman is being let out of director jail to take a crack at it. Kaufman’s a director I like, but whose filmography is a touch spotty and filled with multi-year gaps. On one end of the spectrum we have The Right Stuff, a classic. On the other we have Twisted, a bolus. Which end of the spectrum will I Was Interrupted fall on?
I Was Interrupted is just about the last ten years of Ray’s life, when he was a one-eyed wreck in love with a teenage girl and making bizarre experimental films nobody liked. It’s written by Oren Moverman, the screenwriter of Jesus’ Son.
There’s no start date or casting, although I would love to see George Clooney tackle the role.