Ray Carney
Encyclopedia
Ray Carney, also known as Raymond Carney, Ph.D, is an American scholar and critic, primarily known for his work as a film theorist
, although he writes extensively on American art and literature as well. He is known for his study of the works of actor and director John Cassavetes
. He teaches in the American Studies department at Boston University
and has published several books on American art and philosophy.
(magna cum laude) and Rutgers. Professor Carney taught literature
at Middlebury College
and Humanities
at the University of Texas at Austin
. He was also a William Rice Kimball Fellow at Stanford, working on a study of performance art
, particularly the stand up comedy of Richard Pryor
and Lenny Bruce
.
He met Cassavetes during the last years of the director's life, and was the first American scholar to write books on the director.
and Shadows. The longer version of Faces he discovered is stored at the Library of Congress
, but has been suppressed by Gena Rowlands
, the widow of Cassavetes and executor of his estate.
The alternate Shadows, also known as Shadows I or the Ur-Shadows, was created two years before the 1959 version. It was largely improvised, critically touted at the time of its screening but it confused most of the public in attendance, causing walk-outs.
The film was thought lost for many years, but Carney managed to find a pristine copy that apparently had only been screened two or three times before it was lost. Carney has posted three video clips from Shadows I for viewing on his website to verify the film's condition and indicate the presence of a complete credits sequence, which demonstrates that the version he possesses is a final edited copy, not a rough version.
Carney cites U. S. copyright law, which states that a work in progress or an alternate version of a work is not protected by the same copyright as the finished product, and so is in the public domain. He also has discovered documentation that gives ownership of the Ur-Shadows not to Cassavetes (and ultimately Rowlands) but to the cast and crew.
Carney and Rowlands have always had a testy relationship. Carney was a close friend of Cassavetes in the director's final years, and used a number of private conversations, as well as documented sources, to form his book, Cassavetes on Cassavetes. Cassavetes on Cassavetes, widely acclaimed by both aspiring filmmakers and established figures such as Harmony Korine
and Xan Cassavetes (Rowlands's daughter), presents its subject warts and all, the good side and the bad. Rowlands did not read the book, but heard about some of the more unseemly aspects of her husband's personality covered within, and, according to Carney, began discrediting Carney's work, going so far as to have him fired from the Criterion Collection Cassavetes box-set — after his work as scholarly advisor had been completed.
Carney, for his part, admires Rowlands greatly as an actress, but has also called her an idiot who has no idea what she's talking about when she interprets her husband's films. Carney compares Rowlands to Norma Desmond, the Gloria Swanson
character in Sunset Boulevard, and accuses her of whitewashing her husband's life, denying bouts of depression and doubt.
Rowlands has not spoken to the press about the matter, but some, such as Jonathan Rosenbaum
, have suggested that it might have less to do with trying to destroy or suppress the film and more to do with Carney's name being attached with its find; Carney's caustic personal style, coupled with his usurping of the name Cassavetes for his own website, has irritated members of the Cassavetes estate. The argument, again neither confirmed nor denied by Rowlands, is that they'll be more than happy to release the film once it has been distanced from Carney.
However, past actions taken by Rowlands make Carney's supporters quite skeptical: for example, when the UCLA mounted a restoration of Cassavetes' film Husbands
, she asked for (and was granted) the removal of ten minutes of the film that she found offensive, including the famous and controversial vomiting scene. After the premiere of the Ur-Shadows at the Rotterdam Film Festival, an apologia was issued at the behest of the Cassavetes estate, which states that the Ur-Shadows was an unauthorized working cut never meant to be shown to the public, and that only the official and complete version of Shadows was meant to be seen. This flies in the face of the idea that they would be "more than happy to release it" once Carney's name has become detached from the find.
The legal proceedings involving Ur-Shadows has been very costly for Carney. Rowlands, he argues, being a major Hollywood star with substantial finances at her disposal, has nothing to lose in this case; Carney, a university professor whose lawyer's bills costs "thousands of dollars an hour", says he stands to lose both his house and his job. Carney remains resolute that he will never surrender the film to Rowlands.
, Frank Capra
, and Mike Leigh
. He has also written extensively on American literature (particularly the works of Henry James
) and art (particularly pre-modernist painters such as Sargent
and Hopper
).
, Brian De Palma
, the Coen Brothers, Stanley Kubrick
, Orson Welles
and Quentin Tarantino
, whom he perceives as tricksters, using empty style and pseudo-intellectualism to score points with an "in" crowd (he often refers to Spielberg's output after Schindler's List
as Steven "Please take me seriously" Spielberg movies.)
One well-known example was his 1989 essay on Woody Allen
, Modernism for the Millions . In this piece, Carney argues that Allen uses humour in his films to defuse situations that he, the filmmaker, is uncomfortable with, such as drug use and depression. At the same time, says Carney, Allen wants to get credit for bringing up these issues, as that's what serious artists do.
Carney is as critical of the academic establishment that gives plaudits to these artists as he is of the artists themselves. He feels that symbol
ism is a "high school" understanding of art, and that this kind of decoder ring approach is in place because it's easier to grasp and makes those that teach feel more important and esoteric.
, Tom Noonan
, Andrew Bujalski
, Robert Kramer
, and Mark Rappaport
.
Some are quick to point out that Carney is the self-described expert on the work of Cassavetes, and that he has a tendency to dismiss other opinions on the matter in toto. Noted critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, himself a target of some of Carney's attacks, noted that in Carney's book Cassavetes on Cassavetes, Carney does not list his sources, "setting up obstacles to other researchers that are so formidable that he effectively seems to be staking a territorial claim and announcing ‘No Trespassing' to other scholars."
Film theory
Film theory is an academic discipline that aims to explore the essence of the cinema and provides conceptual frameworks for understanding film's relationship to reality, the other arts, individual viewers, and society at large...
, although he writes extensively on American art and literature as well. He is known for his study of the works of actor and director John Cassavetes
John Cassavetes
John Nicholas Cassavetes was an American actor, screenwriter and filmmaker. He acted in many Hollywood films, notably Rosemary's Baby and The Dirty Dozen...
. He teaches in the American Studies department at Boston University
Boston University
Boston University is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers...
and has published several books on American art and philosophy.
Background
Carney was educated at HarvardHarvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
(magna cum laude) and Rutgers. Professor Carney taught literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
at Middlebury College
Middlebury College
Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college located in Middlebury, Vermont, USA. Founded in 1800, it is one of the oldest liberal arts colleges in the United States. Drawing 2,400 undergraduates from all 50 United States and over 70 countries, Middlebury offers 44 majors in the arts,...
and Humanities
Humanities
The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....
at the University of Texas at Austin
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...
. He was also a William Rice Kimball Fellow at Stanford, working on a study of performance art
Performance art
In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
, particularly the stand up comedy of Richard Pryor
Richard Pryor
Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor was an American stand-up comedian, actor, social critic, writer and MC. Pryor was known for uncompromising examinations of racism and topical contemporary issues, which employed colorful vulgarities, and profanity, as well as racial epithets...
and Lenny Bruce
Lenny Bruce
Leonard Alfred Schneider , better known by the stage name Lenny Bruce, was a Jewish-American comedian, social critic and satirist...
.
He met Cassavetes during the last years of the director's life, and was the first American scholar to write books on the director.
Alternate Cassavetes works
Carney has discovered alternate versions of Cassavetes's seminal works, FacesFaces (film)
Faces is a 1968 drama film, directed by John Cassavetes and starring John Marley, Cassavetes' wife Gena Rowlands, Seymour Cassel and Lynn Carlin, who both received Academy Award nominations for this film....
and Shadows. The longer version of Faces he discovered is stored at the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
, but has been suppressed by Gena Rowlands
Gena Rowlands
Gena Rowlands is an American actress of film, stage and television. The four-time Emmy and two-time Golden Globe winner is best known for her collaborations with her actor-director husband John Cassavetes in ten films, in two of which, Gloria and A Woman Under the Influence, she gave Academy...
, the widow of Cassavetes and executor of his estate.
The alternate Shadows, also known as Shadows I or the Ur-Shadows, was created two years before the 1959 version. It was largely improvised, critically touted at the time of its screening but it confused most of the public in attendance, causing walk-outs.
The film was thought lost for many years, but Carney managed to find a pristine copy that apparently had only been screened two or three times before it was lost. Carney has posted three video clips from Shadows I for viewing on his website to verify the film's condition and indicate the presence of a complete credits sequence, which demonstrates that the version he possesses is a final edited copy, not a rough version.
Rowlands's response
Gena Rowlands has stated that no such film ever existed. She does believe, however, that as Cassavetes's widow, and the owner of several of her husband's films, including the released Shadows, she has legal ownership of any work-in-progress; she also argues that the film is "stolen property". And so, she has started a number of legal proceedings to confiscate the film from Carney and destroy it.Carney cites U. S. copyright law, which states that a work in progress or an alternate version of a work is not protected by the same copyright as the finished product, and so is in the public domain. He also has discovered documentation that gives ownership of the Ur-Shadows not to Cassavetes (and ultimately Rowlands) but to the cast and crew.
Carney and Rowlands have always had a testy relationship. Carney was a close friend of Cassavetes in the director's final years, and used a number of private conversations, as well as documented sources, to form his book, Cassavetes on Cassavetes. Cassavetes on Cassavetes, widely acclaimed by both aspiring filmmakers and established figures such as Harmony Korine
Harmony Korine
The story is told from the perspective of a young man suffering from untreated schizophrenia, played by Ewen Bremner, as he tries to understand his deteriorating world. Julien's abusive father is played by Werner Herzog...
and Xan Cassavetes (Rowlands's daughter), presents its subject warts and all, the good side and the bad. Rowlands did not read the book, but heard about some of the more unseemly aspects of her husband's personality covered within, and, according to Carney, began discrediting Carney's work, going so far as to have him fired from the Criterion Collection Cassavetes box-set — after his work as scholarly advisor had been completed.
Carney, for his part, admires Rowlands greatly as an actress, but has also called her an idiot who has no idea what she's talking about when she interprets her husband's films. Carney compares Rowlands to Norma Desmond, the Gloria Swanson
Gloria Swanson
Gloria Swanson was an American actress, singer and producer. She was one of the most prominent stars during the silent film era as both an actress and a fashion icon, especially under the direction of Cecil B. DeMille, made dozens of silents and was nominated for the first Academy Award in the...
character in Sunset Boulevard, and accuses her of whitewashing her husband's life, denying bouts of depression and doubt.
Rowlands has not spoken to the press about the matter, but some, such as Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jonathan Rosenbaum is an American film critic. Rosenbaum was the head film critic for the Chicago Reader from 1987 until 2008, when he retired at the age of 65...
, have suggested that it might have less to do with trying to destroy or suppress the film and more to do with Carney's name being attached with its find; Carney's caustic personal style, coupled with his usurping of the name Cassavetes for his own website, has irritated members of the Cassavetes estate. The argument, again neither confirmed nor denied by Rowlands, is that they'll be more than happy to release the film once it has been distanced from Carney.
However, past actions taken by Rowlands make Carney's supporters quite skeptical: for example, when the UCLA mounted a restoration of Cassavetes' film Husbands
Husbands (film)
Husbands is a 1970 film written and directed by John Cassavetes. This ensemble film, which describes three middle class men in the throes of a midlife crisis, stars Ben Gazzara, Peter Falk and Cassavetes....
, she asked for (and was granted) the removal of ten minutes of the film that she found offensive, including the famous and controversial vomiting scene. After the premiere of the Ur-Shadows at the Rotterdam Film Festival, an apologia was issued at the behest of the Cassavetes estate, which states that the Ur-Shadows was an unauthorized working cut never meant to be shown to the public, and that only the official and complete version of Shadows was meant to be seen. This flies in the face of the idea that they would be "more than happy to release it" once Carney's name has become detached from the find.
The legal proceedings involving Ur-Shadows has been very costly for Carney. Rowlands, he argues, being a major Hollywood star with substantial finances at her disposal, has nothing to lose in this case; Carney, a university professor whose lawyer's bills costs "thousands of dollars an hour", says he stands to lose both his house and his job. Carney remains resolute that he will never surrender the film to Rowlands.
Other works
Besides his work on John Cassavetes, Carney has written on Carl Theodor DreyerCarl Theodor Dreyer
Carl Theodor Dreyer, Jr. was a Danish film director. He is regarded by many critics and filmmakers as one of the greatest directors in cinema.-Life:Dreyer was born illegitimate in Copenhagen, Denmark...
, Frank Capra
Frank Capra
Frank Russell Capra was a Sicilian-born American film director. He emigrated to the U.S. when he was six, and eventually became a creative force behind major award-winning films during the 1930s and 1940s...
, and Mike Leigh
Mike Leigh
Michael "Mike" Leigh, OBE is a British writer and director of film and theatre. He studied theatre at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and studied further at the Camberwell School of Art and the Central School of Art and Design. He began as a theatre director and playwright in the mid 1960s...
. He has also written extensively on American literature (particularly the works of Henry James
Henry James
Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
) and art (particularly pre-modernist painters such as Sargent
John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent was an American artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury. During his career, he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings...
and Hopper
Edward Hopper
Edward Hopper was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. While most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching...
).
Popular culture, kitsch, and symbolism
Carney is highly critical of much mainstream art, and the way it is approached from an academic standpoint. He is well-known, and in some circles reviled, for the stridency with which he attacks artists as diverse as Steven SpielbergSteven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
, Brian De Palma
Brian De Palma
Brian Russell De Palma is an American film director and writer. In a career spanning over 40 years, he is probably best known for his suspense and crime thriller films, including such box office successes as the horror film Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Scarface, The Untouchables, and Mission:...
, the Coen Brothers, Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
, Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
and Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...
, whom he perceives as tricksters, using empty style and pseudo-intellectualism to score points with an "in" crowd (he often refers to Spielberg's output after Schindler's List
Schindler's List
Schindler's List is a 1993 American film about Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who saved the lives of more than a thousand mostly Polish-Jewish refugees during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories. The film was directed by Steven Spielberg, and based on the novel Schindler's Ark...
as Steven "Please take me seriously" Spielberg movies.)
One well-known example was his 1989 essay on Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
, Modernism for the Millions . In this piece, Carney argues that Allen uses humour in his films to defuse situations that he, the filmmaker, is uncomfortable with, such as drug use and depression. At the same time, says Carney, Allen wants to get credit for bringing up these issues, as that's what serious artists do.
Carney is as critical of the academic establishment that gives plaudits to these artists as he is of the artists themselves. He feels that symbol
Symbol
A symbol is something which represents an idea, a physical entity or a process but is distinct from it. The purpose of a symbol is to communicate meaning. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a picture of a tent might represent a campsite. Numerals are symbols for...
ism is a "high school" understanding of art, and that this kind of decoder ring approach is in place because it's easier to grasp and makes those that teach feel more important and esoteric.
Pragmatic aesthetic
While Carney decries surface style and finds using symbols to gain meaning from a work promotes a shallow understanding of art, he believes that the meaning of the work lies at its surface. He posits a world where art is appreciated for what the work actually contains rather than what is read into it, an aesthetic he refers to as pragmatic. Living moment to moment, he argues, one can, for example, just appreciate the acting in a film and gain meaning from that, from what the characters actually say and do, and the tonal shifts that accompany these actions.Carney's supporters
Carney's dedication to film as an art form in general, and his decidedly anti-mainstream stance in particular, have made him something of a hero to many aspiring and first time filmmakers. His website has a large archive of letters from like-minded spirits. In addition to the amateur opinion he has supported and in turn received support from such independent luminaries as Charles BurnettCharles Burnett (director)
Charles Burnett is an African-American film director, film producer, writer, editor, actor, photographer, and cinematographer...
, Tom Noonan
Tom Noonan
Tom Noonan is an American actor and film writer-director.-Early life:Noonan was born in Greenwich, Connecticut, the son of Rosaleen and Tom Noonan, who worked as a dentist and jazz musician respectively...
, Andrew Bujalski
Andrew Bujalski
Andrew Bujalski, born April 29, 1977 in Boston, Massachusetts, is an American film director, screenwriter and actor, who has been called the "Godfather of Mumblecore."- Bio :...
, Robert Kramer
Robert Kramer
Robert Kramer was an American film director, screenwriter and actor. He directed 19 films between 1965 and 1999...
, and Mark Rappaport
Mark Rappaport
Mark Rappaport is an American independent/underground film director who has been working sporadically since the early 1970s. A lifelong New Yorker, born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, he graduated from Brooklyn College in 1964...
.
Criticism
Critics of Carney find him to be both elitist and obscurant, as he often champions films and filmmakers that the mainstream film critics (and even fellow "elitists") have never even heard of. The stridency of his essays and opinions have caused some to call him a fanatic; others find him annoying, cloying, and childish, particularly when he throws around words like "idiot" to describe his fellow scholars, critics, and film professionals. Additionally, Carney has recently come under fire due to a blog posting he made on a Boston University website. His blog is critical of his graduate students at the school's College of Communication. Carney states: "The school ends up with an awful lot of third-rate grad. students... they have virtually NO artistic curiosity or intellectual passion. If they had, they wouldn't have ended up here because they would have been admitted to, and given scholarships at, better schools."Some are quick to point out that Carney is the self-described expert on the work of Cassavetes, and that he has a tendency to dismiss other opinions on the matter in toto. Noted critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, himself a target of some of Carney's attacks, noted that in Carney's book Cassavetes on Cassavetes, Carney does not list his sources, "setting up obstacles to other researchers that are so formidable that he effectively seems to be staking a territorial claim and announcing ‘No Trespassing' to other scholars."