Lightning Over Water

Lightning Over Water (1980)

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.

Date of release
1980-10-01
TMDB
6.6 / 10 (33)
Runtime
1h 31m
Genres
Documentary
Director
Nicholas Ray, Wim Wenders

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Budget: $700K

Lightning Over Water, also known as Nick's Film, is a 1980 West German-Swedish documentary-drama film written, directed by and starring Wim Wenders and Nicholas Ray. It centers on the last days of Ray's own life, who was already known worldwide for his 1955 classic film Rebel Without a Cause. It was screened out of competition at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival.

Production

After Ray's death, editor Peter Przygodda edited a 116-minute version without Wenders's involvement that played Out of Competition at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival. Wenders was dissatisfied with this version, and he re-edited the film with Przygodda to create a shorter director's cut.

The American filmmaker Jon Jost, who worked on the project at an early stage, wrote that Ray was suffering from severe mental decline during the production, accusing Wenders and Ray's widow Susan of making Ray work beyond his physical capacity.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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