James Gray

James Gray says that he has always been a misfit, that he has always felt displaced and that this is the central theme of his cinema: from A Question of Blood , his debut, to Ellis’s Dream , his latest film. All of his work is full of characters who do not find his place, who feel like strangers in his theoretical home. And all of them barely survive in New York, the director’s hometown.

And so, in effect, lives the character of his first film. The protagonist of A Question of Blood is a contract killer disowned by his family. He has returned to Brooklyn and has to hide from everyone. Only his little brother brings some light to his life. With this story, the young Gray, who was only 24 years old, won the Silver Lion at the Venice Festival. Powerful and tragic story, elegant planning, nostalgic atmosphere: his debut already presented the main characteristics of his cinema.

It would be 6 years until James Gray released another movie. He did it with The Other Face of Crime , a work that had a theme similar to its predecessor: an ex-convict returns home to rebuild his life, but it doesn’t take long for him to get involved in the shady deals of his best friend. The aesthetics of the film had improved a lot compared to his previous work, but so did the characters, now more complex and rich in nuances. In part this was thanks to the leading duo of Mark Wahlberg and Joaquin Phoenix , who were terrific. All this led to the film being selected to compete for the Palme d’Or at Cannes.

And despite the success of his two films, James Gray was unable to release another until 2007, seven years later. In a recent interview, the director explained the gaps in time between his different jobs: “Sometimes you decide to go out for dinner with some friends but, since one wants French food, the other prefers sushi and the other prefers hamburgers, in the end each one he’s going to have dinner on his own. Imagine, then, how difficult it is to get a team of one hundred people to agree to work for a couple of years and with a budget of several million dollars”.

The night is ours  returned, of course, to exploit the character of the misfit. Joaquin Phoenix, who had become James Gray’s favorite actor, was in this film a shady businessman with a policeman brother. The relationship between them, between the world of law and that of crime, is the central theme of the film. And in the background the dark New York, its melancholic gray atmosphere. Film noir and family drama all rolled into one. And again he was in the competitive section at Cannes, which recognized a director who pampered his work, who was very clear about what kind of cinema he wanted to make: “I try to follow in the footsteps of Coppola , Martin Scorsese , Robert Altman and Stanley Kubrick. For me, they embody an American cinema based on thematic depth and the creation of atmospheres”.

James’ next film shifted on the surface, moving from gangster drama to romantic drama, but he didn’t renounce the common thread of his filmography: the misfit. The protagonist of Two Lovers is a strange and psychologically unstable man, who tries to overcome his latest crisis while living with his parents. Suddenly, two women enter his life to change it: Sandra, stability personified, and Michelle, who is all mystery and impulses; As in his previous work, two opposing worlds collide. Sad and moving film, filmed with incredible sincerity. With this work, and with his third appearance at Cannes, Gray established himself as one of the most interesting young directors of the moment.

From romantic drama he jumped to period drama with Ellis’s Dream . Different environment for characters with similar disorders. The film’s protagonist is a woman who, together with her sister, leaves her native Poland to seek a better future in New York. But due to an illness of her sister, she is forced to earn money to be allowed into the country and her only option is to prostitute herself. Tough and moving film about a woman’s struggle to make a name for herself in a strange country and save her sister. Once again, the aesthetics of the work merge with the story to create a gray, sad, dark atmosphere, which contrasts with the stage lights in which the protagonist has to show herself.

James Gray’s career is short, but all his films show tremendous work and talent. With only five titles, this filmmaker has shown that he is a master of setting, which always has a primary role in his films. His works are shot with nerve and passion, seeking sincere emotions, something that he himself lacks in the bulk of American cinema: “Stanley Kubrick once said that I wish all movies were more provocative and sincere. And cinema today tries to be provocative but not sincere, it lacks passion and emotional commitment. Since post-structuralist ideas were imposed at the end of the 1960s, cinema has experienced a devaluation of emotion. Anything emotional is considered corny and viewed cynically. Instead, excitement is exactly what I’m looking for.”