Lightning over Water

1980
6.7| 1h31m| en
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Director 'Nicholas Ray' is eager to complete a final film before his imminent death from cancer. Wim Wenders is working on his own film Hammett (1983) in Hollywood, but flies to New York to help Ray realize his final wish. Ray's original intent is to make a fiction film about a dying painter who sails to China to find a cure for his disease. He and Wenders discuss this idea, but it is obviously unrealistic given Ray's state of health.

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Incannerax What a waste of my time!!!
GazerRise Fantastic!
Billie Morin This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows
Brennan Camacho Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.
Klaus Ming Lightning Over Water began as a collaborative idea to tell the story of a dying painter who steals art from museums and replaces them with his own forgeries. Suffering from terminal cancer himself, Ray's health quickly deteriorates during the project. The film eventually ceases to be a work of fiction and becomes a documentary of Ray's finals days in which he fittingly spends making film. In reflecting over his career and life, Ray ponders his successes and failures as a film maker who is best known for Rebel Without a Cause (1955). A poignant and often disturbing film, Lighting Over Water is ultimately a painful homage to a film maker and to a friend (Klaus Ming March 2013).
dbdumonteil In 1977,Nicholas Ray was part of the cast of "der Amerikanische Freund" as Derwatt,a painter who made forgeries .In this movie,Ray tells the story of a painter who steals the masterpieces in the museums and replaces them with forgeries.I have always been a Ray fan from "they live by night" to "run for cover" to "party girl" to his final epics which were looked upon by pretty much as failures.I must admit that I do not go much for Wenders' stuff ,which is much too intellectual for me .Its not a documentary movie,it's cinema verite depicting a man who is dying.The courage the director displays in front of death commands admiration but I wonder whether this movie should have been released:it's an intimate one,which should have been reserved for the circle of family and close friends.And I'm sure that many of these prefer to keep a picture of a healthy man .If you have seen four or five movies by Ray ("rebel without a cause" "Johnny Guitar" "The savage" ) a piece of advice:try and see the lesser known Ray works:"wind across the everglades "born to be bad" "on dangerous ground" or "knock on any door" .The best homage to an exceptionally gifted director.There are two good moments in "Lightning over water":The "lusty men" extract happens to be my favorite in this classic:Mitchum come s back home,an old house where he finds back a comic and a money box:In "Lightning " ,Ray hints at "coming back home,seeing my mother's face" Childhood was an obsession in his work :just remember Dean playing in the gutter ("Rebel) or Cagney trying to make Derek his "son" in "run for cover" .THe diary which Wenders reads is in German which makes sense since it's his first language;the shots of the wings of the plane are fascinating.
pyamada Wenders gives the viewer the impression that this is a simple movie, but it is not. Fans of Wenders will recognize director Nicholas Ray's apartment as a location for the film, American Friend. But not only is Ray simply dying, he dies, and the "documentary" has to change, and so it does, with grace, pain, uncertainty, and a host of other emotions and observations. The music, much of it featuring Ronee Blakley, doing what sounds like an attempt at light punk rock and country-folk rock, with a definite Patti Smith influence, is very effective. Like every film I have seen by Wenders, it looks beautiful and often unusual, and the pacing is leisurely, and by Hollywood standards, slow. However, anyone who likes Wenders and likes Ray--and let's face it, if you say you are a fan of American film, and you neither like nor know Nicholas Ray, you are an ignorant piker, poser--will benefit from screening this movie, and probably be moved like hell by it.
Eyeblood this is a film i forced myself to watch in order to complete a speech in german about wim wender's amerkiabild. it is all about the death of a cancer ridden man. that is about all of the plot i could figure out.the images, as is usual with wender's films, are striking and pungent to the hollywood-movie-goer senses. the scenes in this movie are about the slowest i have ever seen. i did find a few rewarding scenes here and there scattered throughout the chaos. the graduate monkey, the speech at vassar college, and the alarm clock scene to mention a few.that is about all i know on this one.i give it two riders of the apocalypse.

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