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Here's a good James Gray feature for anyone who is interested, from Dennis Lim of the New York Times. Gray's We Own the Night comes out in a month.
Mr. Gray's first film since "The Yards" in 2000 got a decidedly mixed reception at the Cannes Film Festival in May. An early screening for buyers resulted in a bidding war, said Marc Butan, the president of 2929 Productions and a producer of the film. Sony Pictures eventually acquired it for $11 million. (It is set to open Oct. 12, on more than 2,000 screens, compared with 150 for "The Yards.") But when it came to the critics, as tends to be the case with Mr. Gray, things got more complicated.
At the first Cannes press screening, which took place after the film had been sold, boos erupted during the closing credits. American critics seemed to be the most vocal in their disapproval. A dismissive review in Variety deemed the film "exceptionally conventional" and likened it to "an O.K. television movie."
But it also had its champions — notably among European, and most of all French, critics. The French daily Le Monde concluded its rave by proclaiming Mr. Gray "one of the great American directors of our time."
In a recent interview in Manhattan Mr. Gray said: "Apparently I'm the dramatic version of Jerry Lewis. Someone wrote that I'm the object of Gallic fetish." ...
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