Man Ray: Return To Reason - Enzian Theater

4K Restoration!

The four films Man Ray directed between 1923 and 1929, LE RETOUR À LA RAISON, EMAK-BAKIA, L’ÉTOILE DE MER and LES MYSTÈRES DU CHÂTEAU DU DÉ represent a high watermark of early European avant-garde cinema, a seminal nexus of experimental technique, surrealist narrative, and playful abstraction as suffused with dark eroticism. In these films Ray began discovering the limitless possibilities of montage as well as the direct application onto celluloid of objects such as salt, pepper, pins, and thumbtacks. Juxtaposing undulating geometric patterns, a twirling fairground ride, and a female nude, among other striking images, Ray finds subconscious correspondences among seemingly incongruous materials and figures.

In celebration of the hundredth anniversary of LE RETOUR À LA RAISON, the Jim Jarmusch-Carter Logan combo Sqürl present MAN RAY: RETURN TO REASON, with a newly-recorded drone rock soundtrack for that title as well as the three other Ray films. The band’s cosmic sounds complement Ray’s work by conjuring the beautiful, ineffable, haunting, and sublime.

The restoration process was led by Womanray and Cinenovo sourcing original prints from various parts of the world, in partnership with La Cinémathèque française, the Centre Pompidou, the Library of Congress, the French CNC and Cineteca di Bologna.

1923 – 1929, 70 minutes, USA/France, Silent, Directed by Man Ray, Not Rated

“We feel very proud to be Man Ray’s backup band. I think ultimately what we’re trying to do, and what Man Ray did, was create a sort of ecstatic state. A place that exists in a little space between consciousness and unconsciousness, between dream and wakefulness, and between reality and the surreal world.”
- Jim Jarmusch, SQÜRL
"Man Ray offered artists in all media an example of a creative intelligence that, in its 'pursuit of pleasure and liberty', unlocked every door it came to and walked freely where it would."
- ARTNEWS
“These four films take us back to the heady days of surrealism, when the essential properties of cinema could be turned against narrative logic, producing moods and gestures more akin to poetry and music.”
– THE VIENNALE (Vienna International Film Festival)