Man Ray's Films (1923-1940)

American painter and artist in various media who participated in a few films, Man Ray helped found the Dada movement and was the prime American participant in the Surrealist movement. An American expatriate to Paris in the 1920s, he was a member of the so-called "Lost Generation" of creative minds associated with that time and place. His art encompassed not only painting but photography and collage. He directed a few films of a surrealist nature in the 1920s.
Leaving USA, Man Ray went to live in Paris in 1921. Throughout the 1920s, a decade marked by Dadaism and then by Surrealism, he was able to make films ("Emak Bakia", "L'Étoile de mer" and "Les Mystères du Château du Dé") which turned him into one of the major figures of avant-garde cinema.







1. Rue Campagne-Première - c. 1923-29 - 1 min - b&w
2. Corrida - 1929 - 4 min 30s - b&w
3. Autoportrait ou Ce qui manque à nous tous - c. 1930 - 6 min 40s - b&w - cast: Lee Miller, Man Ray
4. Poison - c. 1933-35 - 3 min 30s - b&w - cast: Meret Oppenheim, Man Ray
5. L'atelier du Val de Grâce - c. 1935 - 1 min 55s - colour
6. Course landaise - c. 1937 - 6 min 30s - colour - cast: Ady Fidelin
7. La Garoupe - c. 1937 - 9 min 05s - colour - cast: Pablo Picasso, Paul Eluard, Nusch Eluard, Cécile Eluard, Emily Davies, Valentine Penrose, Roland Penrose, Man Ray
8. Ady - 1938 - 55s - b&w - cast: Ady Fidelin, Man Ray
9. Dance - 1938 - 5 min 30s - b&w - cast: Jenny
10. Juliet - c. 1940 - 3 min 20s - b&w - cast: Juliet Browner, Man Ray

After his famous short films made in the 1920s, Man Ray gave up the opportunity of a career in film as talking cinema seemed too much of a constraint to him, but continued to make films as an amateur. Yet, he almost made them in secret; at least he never thought it useful to talk about this second stage of his film work. More than ten short films were made from the early 1920-30s to the mid-1940s: some are just test films or film playlets. We may approach them in the hope that these pictures reveal the spectre of this artist's fascinating personality.