Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Ray (2004)
Director: Taylor Hackford
See Januray for analysis of:
The Aviator
Finding Neverland
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Closer
* Warning * The f0llowing analysis discusses the entire film, including the ending.
Ray is fantastically entertaining, wonderfully acted from top to bottom, and is just a damn good story told well. It is biopic of Ray Charles spanning his life from age 8 in the segregated south to his world-renowned success in the late 1960s.
Interestingly The Aviator and Ray share many similarities: both are biopics of the famous, both are fast paced, absorbing and thoroughly entertaining, both stories are punctuated by numerous renown successes (the creation of airplanes in The Aviator, the creation of songs in Ray) and both main characters have their Achilles heel (mental illness in The Aviator, heroine addiction in Ray). Ray, however, succeeds in the critical area of character, precisely where the The Aviator fails.
Ray succeeds by staying focused on Ray as a person in a story, rather than as an icon in a spectacle (which is how Martin Scorsese treats Howard Hughes). Of course you realize that the story is about Ray Charles, most poignantly when you hear his familiar, brilliant music; however, the film is at its best when you forget about the real life Ray Charles and are absorbed in the on screen performance, (and you are continuously absorbed).
Scorsese, on the other hand, is continually pointing outward from the film asking us to think about the real world icons inhabiting the screen. He sets up a wax works and wants us to say “Oooow look, there’s Catherine Hepburn. Owww look, there’s Spencer Tracy.” Scorsese does little in the way of character development, relying, I suppose, on the biographic knowledge we already have to fill in where he has only broadly sketched. Ultimately The Aviator is a surface film, a superficial action adventure. Ray is genuine, insightful, well-structured cinematic story telling. (See The Aviator in January 2005 of this blog for the extended Aviator rant.)
Ray’s story is both incredibly interesting and skillfully composed. Director Taylor Hackford uses intermittent flashbacks to Ray’s ultra-poor childhood in the segregated south as his central dramatic device. The flashbacks give Ray depth, helping to explain why the Ray of our story has become the man he is.
There are two childhood tragedies Ray carries with him throughout the story. The first tragedy is Ray’s blindness, and his mother’s insistence that he become educated and independent despite his handicap. Ray is determined to live up to his mother’s expectation that the world “not make a cripple out of him”. We see Ray’s intense insistence not to be taken advantage of in many scenes: most viscerally when he jumps the table onto the manager whom he thinks has shorted his salary, most personally when he demands autonomy to create, own and control his music, and most significantly when he is the first black musician to boycott segregated auditoriums.
Della Bea’s demand (Ray’s mother) that he become self-reliant developed Ray’s tough confidence, resulting in Ray’s successes. Conversely, Ray’s emotional inability to confront his second childhood tragedy, his brother’s death, instilled the trigger of his near self-destruction. As an 8-year-old boy he stood by helplessly as his younger brother drown. The grief and guilt of this tragedy are always just beneath the surface for Ray as he is unable to forgive himself for his younger brother’s death. We see him start using heroine to dull his emotional pain, but he is eventually hopelessly addicted. Hackford clearly ties Ray’s emotional pain with his heroine use. Kicking his habit becomes his last struggle; Ray suffers painful withdrawal treatment in the film’s climax. In the final stages of his recovery Ray, in a withdrawal delusion, confronts his childhood ghosts. He is upbraided by his mother that they “made a cripple out of you any way” referring to his addiction, while his little brother breaks all our hearts (and has us reaching for the tissues) when he sweetly assures Ray his death was not Ray’s fault. Ray recovers and we know he has established the inner peace he needs to rebuild his family and continue with his fabulous music career. It is a subtle and beautiful climax.
Finally, Hackford smartly closes with a quick, well constructed, quiet dénouement. We read a synopsis of the rest of Ray’s life, successes and contributions - and the film ends, allowing a silent moment for us to exhale and say, “wow”.
A fantastic ending to a fantastic film.
Should you see it? You’ll love it.
See Januray for analysis of:
The Aviator
Finding Neverland
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Closer
* Warning * The f0llowing analysis discusses the entire film, including the ending.
Ray is fantastically entertaining, wonderfully acted from top to bottom, and is just a damn good story told well. It is biopic of Ray Charles spanning his life from age 8 in the segregated south to his world-renowned success in the late 1960s.
Interestingly The Aviator and Ray share many similarities: both are biopics of the famous, both are fast paced, absorbing and thoroughly entertaining, both stories are punctuated by numerous renown successes (the creation of airplanes in The Aviator, the creation of songs in Ray) and both main characters have their Achilles heel (mental illness in The Aviator, heroine addiction in Ray). Ray, however, succeeds in the critical area of character, precisely where the The Aviator fails.
Ray succeeds by staying focused on Ray as a person in a story, rather than as an icon in a spectacle (which is how Martin Scorsese treats Howard Hughes). Of course you realize that the story is about Ray Charles, most poignantly when you hear his familiar, brilliant music; however, the film is at its best when you forget about the real life Ray Charles and are absorbed in the on screen performance, (and you are continuously absorbed).
Scorsese, on the other hand, is continually pointing outward from the film asking us to think about the real world icons inhabiting the screen. He sets up a wax works and wants us to say “Oooow look, there’s Catherine Hepburn. Owww look, there’s Spencer Tracy.” Scorsese does little in the way of character development, relying, I suppose, on the biographic knowledge we already have to fill in where he has only broadly sketched. Ultimately The Aviator is a surface film, a superficial action adventure. Ray is genuine, insightful, well-structured cinematic story telling. (See The Aviator in January 2005 of this blog for the extended Aviator rant.)
Ray’s story is both incredibly interesting and skillfully composed. Director Taylor Hackford uses intermittent flashbacks to Ray’s ultra-poor childhood in the segregated south as his central dramatic device. The flashbacks give Ray depth, helping to explain why the Ray of our story has become the man he is.
There are two childhood tragedies Ray carries with him throughout the story. The first tragedy is Ray’s blindness, and his mother’s insistence that he become educated and independent despite his handicap. Ray is determined to live up to his mother’s expectation that the world “not make a cripple out of him”. We see Ray’s intense insistence not to be taken advantage of in many scenes: most viscerally when he jumps the table onto the manager whom he thinks has shorted his salary, most personally when he demands autonomy to create, own and control his music, and most significantly when he is the first black musician to boycott segregated auditoriums.
Della Bea’s demand (Ray’s mother) that he become self-reliant developed Ray’s tough confidence, resulting in Ray’s successes. Conversely, Ray’s emotional inability to confront his second childhood tragedy, his brother’s death, instilled the trigger of his near self-destruction. As an 8-year-old boy he stood by helplessly as his younger brother drown. The grief and guilt of this tragedy are always just beneath the surface for Ray as he is unable to forgive himself for his younger brother’s death. We see him start using heroine to dull his emotional pain, but he is eventually hopelessly addicted. Hackford clearly ties Ray’s emotional pain with his heroine use. Kicking his habit becomes his last struggle; Ray suffers painful withdrawal treatment in the film’s climax. In the final stages of his recovery Ray, in a withdrawal delusion, confronts his childhood ghosts. He is upbraided by his mother that they “made a cripple out of you any way” referring to his addiction, while his little brother breaks all our hearts (and has us reaching for the tissues) when he sweetly assures Ray his death was not Ray’s fault. Ray recovers and we know he has established the inner peace he needs to rebuild his family and continue with his fabulous music career. It is a subtle and beautiful climax.
Finally, Hackford smartly closes with a quick, well constructed, quiet dénouement. We read a synopsis of the rest of Ray’s life, successes and contributions - and the film ends, allowing a silent moment for us to exhale and say, “wow”.
A fantastic ending to a fantastic film.
Should you see it? You’ll love it.
