Ray, viewed on DVD
As always, the review is a review of the film, and so contains spoilers.
Recommendation: A well-acted slice of life.
Critique: Ray is both really well executed and very poorly conceived: it has some brilliant performances, but the script is all over the map, and there is no ending at all. The soundtrack and cinematography are both quite good, and bạn really come to care about the characters. But the rhythm of the film is jerky and uneven, particularly towards the end. The film plays like a dramatized biography for the most part - the parts that succeed - but it also has trippy flashbacks and an unclear message. The message seems to be a reiteration of the American Dream: believe in yourself hard enough, and bạn can do anything, no matter what anybody says hoặc does. But the message - whatever it is - is delivered slipshod with an absent ending: the ending of the picture is the sort of "Where are they now?" titles that bạn see as the credits rolls in films like Animal House.
Review: cá đuối, ray Charles Robinson grows up in northern Florida raised bởi his sharecropper mom. While a boy, he begins to learn đàn piano from a local boogie-woogie player. Soon after, his brother drowns in a washtub while cá đuối, ray does nothing, and the horror of that stays with him his whole life, in the form of vivid hallucinations which occur in times of stress. Within a year, he loses his sight and is sent off to a school for the blind with some Lời khuyên on self-reliance and defiance from his mama, which he also vividly remembers over and over again throughout his life. Having returned from school and his mama dead, cá đuối, ray plays local gigs until a đàn ghi ta, guitar hustler finds him and decides that he'd be his meal-ticket. He convinces cá đuối, ray to di chuyển to Seattle. There cá đuối, ray meets another hustler, a woman who becomes his manager and lover.
cá đuối, ray has an hallucination.
The guitarist and the manager hoodwink cá đuối, ray for some time, until with the help of a midget (who introduces him to pot) and the plucky kid Quincy Jones, cá đuối, ray realizes what's going on and strikes out on his own, getting signed to a small record label of his own. He then proceeds to succeed, first bởi imitating other musicians (such as Nat King Cole), and then later bởi recording his own blend of gospel âm nhạc with rock and blues lyrics. His band-mates introduce him to heroin, and he becomes an addict. He has an hallucination. His contract is bought bởi Atlantic records, where he makes a lot of money.
He hits on and falls in tình yêu with Della Bea, a Texas gospel singer, and they are married. They get pregnant, she finds out that he's hooked on heroin and refuses to come on tour with him. He goes off in a huff and begins the first of a long series of tumultuous affairs with backup singers. He has a number of hallucinations. His records do
so well that ABC records signs a contract with him, in which he gets to keep his master recordings. He becomes a superstar. He goes to play a hợp đồng biểu diễn, gig, biểu diễn in Georgia and decides that he will never play a Jim con quạ state again. ABC records manages to massage that breach of contract so he
doesn't go to jail, but Georgia bans him from the state for life. The police and later the feds try a number of variations on entrapment and end up throwing him in jail for some time. Immediately after, his wife is shown to be unhappy with both his addiction and his inattention to the family.
He goes into rehab, sweats out the DTs, and then refuses the doctor's advice. Instead, he has another hallucination whereby we learn that
the hallucinations have been trying to tell him to trust in himself and be strong. Immediately after, we get a series of titles that explain that cá đuối, ray continued to play âm nhạc for 40 thêm years, but the best part came in 1979 when Georgia rescinded its lifelong ban. The end.
The film is beautifully acted, but what was up with the script? It is shocking to me that this was nominated as best picture, with such poor, poor storytelling. We care about the characters, but the plot doesn't get resolved in any way - the only complete arc is the hallucinatory story arc, and who cares about that?
As always, the review is a review of the film, and so contains spoilers.
Recommendation: A well-acted slice of life.
Critique: Ray is both really well executed and very poorly conceived: it has some brilliant performances, but the script is all over the map, and there is no ending at all. The soundtrack and cinematography are both quite good, and bạn really come to care about the characters. But the rhythm of the film is jerky and uneven, particularly towards the end. The film plays like a dramatized biography for the most part - the parts that succeed - but it also has trippy flashbacks and an unclear message. The message seems to be a reiteration of the American Dream: believe in yourself hard enough, and bạn can do anything, no matter what anybody says hoặc does. But the message - whatever it is - is delivered slipshod with an absent ending: the ending of the picture is the sort of "Where are they now?" titles that bạn see as the credits rolls in films like Animal House.
Review: cá đuối, ray Charles Robinson grows up in northern Florida raised bởi his sharecropper mom. While a boy, he begins to learn đàn piano from a local boogie-woogie player. Soon after, his brother drowns in a washtub while cá đuối, ray does nothing, and the horror of that stays with him his whole life, in the form of vivid hallucinations which occur in times of stress. Within a year, he loses his sight and is sent off to a school for the blind with some Lời khuyên on self-reliance and defiance from his mama, which he also vividly remembers over and over again throughout his life. Having returned from school and his mama dead, cá đuối, ray plays local gigs until a đàn ghi ta, guitar hustler finds him and decides that he'd be his meal-ticket. He convinces cá đuối, ray to di chuyển to Seattle. There cá đuối, ray meets another hustler, a woman who becomes his manager and lover.
cá đuối, ray has an hallucination.
The guitarist and the manager hoodwink cá đuối, ray for some time, until with the help of a midget (who introduces him to pot) and the plucky kid Quincy Jones, cá đuối, ray realizes what's going on and strikes out on his own, getting signed to a small record label of his own. He then proceeds to succeed, first bởi imitating other musicians (such as Nat King Cole), and then later bởi recording his own blend of gospel âm nhạc with rock and blues lyrics. His band-mates introduce him to heroin, and he becomes an addict. He has an hallucination. His contract is bought bởi Atlantic records, where he makes a lot of money.
He hits on and falls in tình yêu with Della Bea, a Texas gospel singer, and they are married. They get pregnant, she finds out that he's hooked on heroin and refuses to come on tour with him. He goes off in a huff and begins the first of a long series of tumultuous affairs with backup singers. He has a number of hallucinations. His records do
so well that ABC records signs a contract with him, in which he gets to keep his master recordings. He becomes a superstar. He goes to play a hợp đồng biểu diễn, gig, biểu diễn in Georgia and decides that he will never play a Jim con quạ state again. ABC records manages to massage that breach of contract so he
doesn't go to jail, but Georgia bans him from the state for life. The police and later the feds try a number of variations on entrapment and end up throwing him in jail for some time. Immediately after, his wife is shown to be unhappy with both his addiction and his inattention to the family.
He goes into rehab, sweats out the DTs, and then refuses the doctor's advice. Instead, he has another hallucination whereby we learn that
the hallucinations have been trying to tell him to trust in himself and be strong. Immediately after, we get a series of titles that explain that cá đuối, ray continued to play âm nhạc for 40 thêm years, but the best part came in 1979 when Georgia rescinded its lifelong ban. The end.
The film is beautifully acted, but what was up with the script? It is shocking to me that this was nominated as best picture, with such poor, poor storytelling. We care about the characters, but the plot doesn't get resolved in any way - the only complete arc is the hallucinatory story arc, and who cares about that?