When Nicholas Ray and Wim Wenders decided to make a film together, Ray had already undergone surgery for cancer. It was only after shooting began that the two directors fixed on the idea of taking their real-life situation as the film’s fiction: Wenders and Ray deciding to make a film with and about each other. Then, as Ray’s strength failed, it became, in his words, “a film about a man who wants to bring himself all together before he dies, a regaining of self-esteem.” Through his work with Wenders and the film crew, Ray transformed his dying into an act of collaboration.