In 1923, Man Ray improvises his first film. This movie, boldly surrealist, is called ‘Return to Reason’. Subsequently, he renews the experience with ‘Emak Bakia’ (1926), ‘The Starfish’ (1928) and ‘The Mysteries of the Château of Dice’ (1929). In 2023, Jim Jarmush and Carter Logan, the founding members of the group Sqürl, compose a soundtrack to the four films as if they were forming one unique piece. ‘Return To Reason’ celebrates the 100th anniversary of Man Ray’s cinematic oeuvre, restored for the first time in 4K. It reveals the unique dialogue between two multitalented artists, and creates an undefinable object, a piece of visual music that resonates through its modernity and poetry.
Born in 1890 in the United States to Jewish Immigrants from Russia, Man Ray is considered a pioneer of the Surrealist movement, with his work spanning painting, sculpture, photography and filmmaking. Disillusioned with traditional art and shaped by the trauma of World War I along with the emergence of a modern media culture, Man Ray and other Dada artists turned to experimentation. Man Ray is perhaps most remembered for his pioneering fashion photography, and camera-less pictures he called ‘Rayographs’, but few are familiar with his work in film. In his silent films, he extended his experimentation with photography to the moving image, playing with chance and light.