# Nick's Film – Lightning Over Water
**Nick's Film – Lightning Over Water** is a 1980 documentary directed by [Nicholas Ray](https://www.edgepedia.org/nicholas-ray) and [Wim Wenders](https://www.edgepedia.org/wim-wenders) about the last months of Ray's life, as the American director was dying of cancer. Wenders and Ray had met on the set of Wenders's film *The American Friend* and become friends; when it became clear that Ray's cancer was terminal, they made the film together in just a few weeks, at a time when Wenders was free from his studio production *Hammett*.[1](https://wimwendersstiftung.de/en/film/nicks-film-lightning-over-water-2/) Ray died on 16 June 1979, a few weeks after the end of shooting.[2](https://www.filmportal.de/film/nicks-film-lightning-over-water_748548d8be644e46bd25267f7cde75e7)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Original title | Nick's Film – Lightning Over Water; also circulated as *Nick's Movie*[1](https://wimwendersstiftung.de/en/film/nicks-film-lightning-over-water-2/) • [3](https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2013/feature-articles/nicks-movies/) |
| Directors | Nicholas Ray, Wim Wenders; screenplay by both[1](https://wimwendersstiftung.de/en/film/nicks-film-lightning-over-water-2/) |
| Subject | The last months of Nicholas Ray, dying of cancer, filmed with his participation[1](https://wimwendersstiftung.de/en/film/nicks-film-lightning-over-water-2/) |
| Format | 90 min, 2452 m; 35mm Eastmancolor combined with 16mm and half-inch Sony Betamax video; 1:1.66; English[4](https://wimwendersstiftung.de/media/WWS_NICK_Presssheet-EN.pdf) • [2](https://www.filmportal.de/film/nicks-film-lightning-over-water_748548d8be644e46bd25267f7cde75e7) |
| Premieres | Cannes, May 1980, out of competition; German premiere 1–2 November 1980 at the Internationale Filmtage Hof[2](https://www.filmportal.de/film/nicks-film-lightning-over-water_748548d8be644e46bd25267f7cde75e7) • [5](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/lightning-over-water/) |
| Award | 1981 German Film Award in Silver (Production)[1](https://wimwendersstiftung.de/en/film/nicks-film-lightning-over-water-2/) |
| Restoration | 4K restoration in 2023, premiered at Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna, on 27 June 2023[1](https://wimwendersstiftung.de/en/film/nicks-film-lightning-over-water-2/) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
New York, 1979. Nicholas Ray, dying of cancer, lives in an apartment with his wife Susan and keeps working. He invites Wim Wenders, who was in the middle of the troubled production of *Hammett* in Hollywood, to fly out and stay with him and help make his final film [17](https://www.screenslate.com/articles/lightning-over-water). Wenders arrives as an admirer and stays as a collaborator, and the two directors set up a working routine: cameras in the apartment, story sessions, talk about shots. Early on, in a harrowing long take, Ray rises from his bed in anguish [18](http://notcoming.com/reviews/lightningoverwater/).
The project they plan is fiction. Ray wants to make a film about a painter who returns to China to find a cure for his disease [19](https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/lightningoverwater/). A Chinese junk boat becomes the image the whole project hangs on, appearing in the film as if conjured out of Ray's own fantasies [20](https://ilcinemaritrovato.it/en/film/lightning-over-water/). But the idea proves too ambitious for a man as weakened as Ray has become, and the fiction collapses back into the reality around it: the film about the painter becomes a film about Ray himself, made on a shoestring and improvised throughout [19](https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/lightningoverwater/).
What remains is the process. Ray and Wenders talk through images, argue about how a scene should be staged, and test the boundary between documentary and performance by filming scenes inside the dying man's own apartment. Wenders cuts in footage from Ray's old pictures, so the documentary becomes a conversation between the old Hollywood and the European cinema it raised. Susan Ray holds the household together around the work, though she all but disappears from the film halfway through, apparently over her disagreements with Wenders about what he was doing [18](http://notcoming.com/reviews/lightningoverwater/).
**In the King Lear rehearsal, Ray lies in a hospital bed with the actress Ronee Blakley beside him and, for five unbroken minutes, rallies a rage about his frailty and his mortality, playing Lear from inside the body of a dying man so that the role and the illness are indistinguishable.** As the take ends, Ray calls "cut," and Wenders undermines him by telling him to cut, then instructing "Don't cut" [21](http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2013/feature-articles/nicks-movies/). The moment stages the whole film in miniature: a director directing his own death, and a younger director refusing to let him fully control it.
Ray's decline continues on camera. In a late long take, a gaunt Ray babbles, moans, sings, and finally declares "I'm finished" [18](http://notcoming.com/reviews/lightningoverwater/). In one scene he has spoken and has nothing more to say; Wenders tells him the camera keeps on, and that Ray can give the word whenever he wants it to stop [22](https://www.idfa.nl/film/390f4a0a-e948-4fa6-974b-65802a9f2e64/lightning-over-water-(nick's-movie)). Ray never gives it. He died in June 1979, before the planned film could be made, and the documentary follows the collaboration to that literal end.
The film closes with the crew's wake for Ray. Depending on the version, it is either interwoven through the picture or confined to an epilogue: Wenders's editor Martin Przygodda cut the film to bring the mourning below deck early and return to it throughout, while Wenders's own cut holds it back until the end [21](http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2013/feature-articles/nicks-movies/). Both versions open the same way, with helicopter shots of the junk drifting in the harbor, an allusion to the aerial shots of Ray's *They Live By Night* [21](http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2013/feature-articles/nicks-movies/). The film Ray never finished was to have been a definitive recut of his *We Can't Go Home Again*; the money and resources this project gave him were meant to fund it [18](http://notcoming.com/reviews/lightningoverwater/). Instead, the last film Nicholas Ray appears in is this one, titled for the movie magic you catch, as Ray put it, by rubbing two sticks together [19](https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/lightningoverwater/).
### Characters
Nicholas Ray (as himself) is the film's center of gravity: the director of *Rebel Without a Cause* and *Johnny Guitar*, funny, exacting, and still thinking like a filmmaker while his body fails. He treats his own death as a production to be staged, and the film's power comes from how seriously he insists on that.
Wim Wenders (as himself) is both documentarian and participant, the younger director documenting his own hero and never quite resolving whether that is an act of love or trespass. He keeps the camera close, sometimes closer than his subject's family would like.
Susan Ray (as herself) is Ray's wife and the film's steadying presence, tending the household and Ray himself while the work continues around her, until her disagreements with Wenders push her out of the picture [18](http://notcoming.com/reviews/lightningoverwater/).
[Ronee Blakley](https://www.edgepedia.org/ronee-blakley) (as herself) plays opposite Ray in the hospital-bed Lear scene, the scene the film is remembered by.
[Samuel Fuller](https://www.edgepedia.org/samuel-fuller) appears as himself, blunt and warm where everything around him is elegiac. At one point Nick joyously spits into the microphone [20](https://ilcinemaritrovato.it/en/film/lightning-over-water/).
### Interpretations and controversies
The film has been accused of exploiting its dying subject since before it was released. Susan Ray, director Jon Jost, and critics Robert Phillip Kolker and Peter Beicken have all argued that Wenders betrays Ray; Kolker and Beicken call the film "almost offensive in its manipulativeness and its naïveté that borders on callousness" [18](http://notcoming.com/reviews/lightningoverwater/). The IDFA archive notes the debate about an invasion of Ray's privacy, pointing to the scene in which the camera keeps rolling over Wenders's own admission that Ray could stop it [22](https://www.idfa.nl/film/390f4a0a-e948-4fa6-974b-65802a9f2e64/lightning-over-water-(nick's-movie)). The film's defense is Ray himself: he wanted to die while making a movie, and the camera was the movie [18](http://notcoming.com/reviews/lightningoverwater/). There is also the matter of the two versions, Przygodda's and Wenders's, which differ enough in structure to be treated as two different films about the same death [21](http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2013/feature-articles/nicks-movies/).
## Background
Ray, the director of *Rebel Without a Cause*, *Johnny Guitar*, *[The Lusty Men](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-lusty-men)*, and *Bigger Than Life*, had been cast in Wenders's *The American Friend* two years earlier, and the two became friends.[1](https://wimwendersstiftung.de/en/film/nicks-film-lightning-over-water-2/) • [6](https://player.bfi.org.uk/subscription/film/watch-nicks-film-lightning-over-water-1980-online) Ray's original plan was a fiction film about a painter with a terminal illness who sails to China to find a cure for his disease; he and Wenders discussed the idea, but it was unrealistic given Ray's health.[7](https://www.flicks.co.nz/movie/lightning-over-water/) Wenders described the project instead as a form of terminal care: "Nick told me about his cancer. He knew he was terminally ill. He wanted to die working. Our collective film was a try to counter the cancer with something, a form of terminal care, which also resulted in a film."[1](https://wimwendersstiftung.de/en/film/nicks-film-lightning-over-water-2/)
Shooting took place in New York City, at [Vassar College](https://www.edgepedia.org/vassar-college) in Poughkeepsie, and in [Malibu, California](https://www.edgepedia.org/malibu-california).[2](https://www.filmportal.de/film/nicks-film-lightning-over-water_748548d8be644e46bd25267f7cde75e7) During the filming Ray lectured students about *The Lusty Men*, received friends and family, and previewed his unfinished experimental film *We Can't Go Home Again* in his SoHo loft.[8](https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/9272) • [9](https://ifi.ie/film/lightning-over-water/)
## Form and technique
The film mixes staged documentary, fictional sequences, raw video footage, excerpts from Ray's diary, and Wenders's voice-over narration.[10](https://academic.oup.com/edinburgh-scholarship-online/book/29953/chapter-abstract/254449719) For the first time, Wenders and Ray used video for filming; Ray had already experimented with video and other techniques in *We Can't Go Home Again*. Wenders recalled that "it was devastating to see how much more merciless and in the end more truthful these ugly and shaky VHS images showed the truth as opposed to our well lit 35mm shots."[1](https://wimwendersstiftung.de/en/film/nicks-film-lightning-over-water-2/) The credited cinematographers were Ed Lachman, Mitch Dubin, and Timothy Ray, with Tom Farrell on video.[4](https://wimwendersstiftung.de/media/WWS_NICK_Presssheet-EN.pdf)
The film opens with a restaged version of the first scene of *The American Friend*, in which Wenders, arriving from California, climbs the stairs to Ray's loft.[11](https://notcoming.com/reviews/lightningoverwater) It ends after Ray's death: a Chinese junk sails on the [Hudson River](https://www.edgepedia.org/hudson-river) toward the open sea carrying an urn with Ray's ashes and an old Moviola, while below deck the crew holds an Irish-wake-style farewell, telling stories about the deceased and getting drunk.[1](https://wimwendersstiftung.de/en/film/nicks-film-lightning-over-water-2/)
## Authorship and versions
Because Ray was seriously weakened by illness from the beginning of shooting, the film became mainly Wenders's film about Ray. Wenders described the situation bluntly: "Two friends, of whom one is about to die, make a film together which is precisely dealing with dying. At the end one friend is dead and the other finishes the film." He also acknowledged that the film "hovers between befitting curiosity and an invasion of Ray's privacy."[12](https://www.idfa.nl/en/film/390f4a0a-e948-4fa6-974b-65802a9f2e64/lightning-over-water-%28nick%27s-movie%29)
The film circulated under variant titles. An early version, called *Nick's Movie*, was screened privately and at Cannes in May 1980; Wenders was not satisfied with that cut, which critics described as having extreme disjunctive editing and longer speeches, and he re-edited it into the version titled simply *Lightning Over Water*.[3](https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2013/feature-articles/nicks-movies/) • [13](https://fileserver-az.core.ac.uk/download/pdf/9837605.pdf) The original version was mistakenly released on American video in 1987 by Pacific Arts, a cut that differs from Wenders's final version.[3](https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2013/feature-articles/nicks-movies/) • [13](https://fileserver-az.core.ac.uk/download/pdf/9837605.pdf)
## Reception and honors
The film was shown out of competition at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival and premiered in Germany at the Internationale Filmtage Hof on 1–2 November 1980; German television broadcast followed on 15 February 1987 on ARD.[2](https://www.filmportal.de/film/nicks-film-lightning-over-water_748548d8be644e46bd25267f7cde75e7) • [5](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/lightning-over-water/) It won the 1981 German Film Award in Silver for production, credited to producers Pierre Cottrell and Chris Sievernich.[1](https://wimwendersstiftung.de/en/film/nicks-film-lightning-over-water-2/) • [14](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081055/awards) Critical response has been divided: Vincent Canby of *The New York Times* called it "chaotic, emotionally and esthetically," while Time Out found that "even with its painful contradictions and discomfitures, it's that current rarity: one for the heart."[15](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/lightning_over_water) Scholars have read it as a collaborative illness narrative and a form of terminal care, noting that its self-consciousness and "messiness" keep open the possibility of witnessing for audiences.[10](https://academic.oup.com/edinburgh-scholarship-online/book/29953/chapter-abstract/254449719)
## 2023 restoration
In 2023 the Wim Wenders Stiftung produced a 4K restoration, scanning the original camera negative, retouching and color-correcting the image, and cleaning the analog 35mm magnetic soundtrack of noise and static clicks while leaving the intended sound composition untouched. All picture and sound work was carried out at BASIS BERLIN Postproduktion, with funding from [The Film Foundation](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-film-foundation) and the German Förderprogramm Filmerbe. The restored version premiered at Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna on 27 June 2023 and is distributed as a 4K DCP.[1](https://wimwendersstiftung.de/en/film/nicks-film-lightning-over-water-2/) • [16](https://www.film-foundation.org/contents/reports/2023/2023.pdf) MoMA screened the restoration in January 2024 as part of its To Save and Project film preservation festival.[8](https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/9272)
## References
1. [Lightning Over Water, Wim Wenders Stiftung](https://wimwendersstiftung.de/en/film/nicks-film-lightning-over-water-2/)
2. [Nick's Film – Lightning Over Water, filmportal.de](https://www.filmportal.de/film/nicks-film-lightning-over-water_748548d8be644e46bd25267f7cde75e7)
3. [Nick's Movies, Senses of Cinema (2013)](https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2013/feature-articles/nicks-movies/)
4. [Lightning Over Water press sheet (EN), Wim Wenders Stiftung](https://wimwendersstiftung.de/media/WWS_NICK_Presssheet-EN.pdf)
5. [Lightning Over Water, Festival de Cannes](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/lightning-over-water/)
6. [Nick's Film (Lightning Over Water), BFI Player](https://player.bfi.org.uk/subscription/film/watch-nicks-film-lightning-over-water-1980-online)
7. [Lightning over Water, Flicks](https://www.flicks.co.nz/movie/lightning-over-water/)
8. [Lightning over Water. 1980, MoMA](https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/9272)
9. [Lightning Over Water, Irish Film Institute](https://ifi.ie/film/lightning-over-water/)
10. [Stella Bolaki, "Collaborative Film as Terminal Care," Illness as Many Narratives (2016)](https://academic.oup.com/edinburgh-scholarship-online/book/29953/chapter-abstract/254449719)
11. [Lightning Over Water review, Not Coming to a Theater Near You (2008)](https://notcoming.com/reviews/lightningoverwater)
12. [Lightning Over Water (Nick's Movie), IDFA Archive](https://www.idfa.nl/en/film/390f4a0a-e948-4fa6-974b-65802a9f2e64/lightning-over-water-%28nick%27s-movie%29)
13. [Representations of Dying in Contemporary Visual Culture and the Ethics of Spectatorship](https://fileserver-az.core.ac.uk/download/pdf/9837605.pdf)
14. [Lightning Over Water (1980) – Awards, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081055/awards)
15. [Lightning Over Water, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/lightning_over_water)
16. [The Film Foundation, Special Projects report 2023](https://www.film-foundation.org/contents/reports/2023/2023.pdf)
17. [https://www.screenslate.com/articles/lightning-over-water](https://www.screenslate.com/articles/lightning-over-water)
18. [http://notcoming.com/reviews/lightningoverwater/](http://notcoming.com/reviews/lightningoverwater/)
19. [https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/lightningoverwater/](https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/lightningoverwater/)
20. [https://ilcinemaritrovato.it/en/film/lightning-over-water/](https://ilcinemaritrovato.it/en/film/lightning-over-water/)
21. [http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2013/feature-articles/nicks-movies/](http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2013/feature-articles/nicks-movies/)
22. [https://www.idfa.nl/film/390f4a0a-e948-4fa6-974b-65802a9f2e64/lightning-over-water-(nick's-movie)](https://www.idfa.nl/film/390f4a0a-e948-4fa6-974b-65802a9f2e64/lightning-over-water-(nick's-movie))
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Films by genre, form, and subject › Documentary and biographical films › Individual documentary feature films › Film, television, and comedy figures*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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