London- and Paris-based production, finance and sales company Film Constellation is launching sales on “Return to Reason,” the newly restored 4K version of an assembly of Man Ray’s four cult classic silent films, paired with an original soundtrack by Jim Jarmusch and Carter Logan’s SQÜRL.
The film, which is produced by Marieke Tricoire at Womanray and Julie Viez at Cinenovo, will premiere in Cannes’ Official Selection as part of the Cannes Classics sidebar.
Celebrating the 100th anniversary of Man Ray’s first film in 1923, “Return to Reason” is the first 4K restoration of Man Ray’s four surrealist and dreamlike short films, known as the first surrealist films, now accompanied by an exclusive soundtrack composed and performed by filmmaker Jim Jarmusch and musician Carter Logan’s band SQÜRL.
Featuring “Le retour à la raison” (Return to Reason) (1923), “Emak Bakia” (1926), “L’étoile de mer” (The Starfish) (1928), and “Les Mystères du château du Dé” (The Mysteries of the Chateau of Dice) (1929), “Return to Reason” is a dive into Man Ray’s surrealist and dreamlike world.
The restoration process was led by l’Immagine Ritrovata, sourcing original prints from various parts of the world, in partnership with Cineteca di Bologna, la Cinémathèque française, le Centre Georges Pompidou, the Library of Congress and the Centre National du Cinéma et de l’image animée.
Jarmusch said: “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.”
Jarmusch and Logan’s rock-duo SQÜRL formed in 2009 to create the soundtrack for the film “The Limits of Control.” In 2014, the group received the Cannes Soundtrack award for its score for the film “only Lovers Left Alive,” a collaboration with Dutch lutenist Jozef Van Wissem. In 2016, they composed the music for “Paterson.” Their debut LP, “Silver Haze,” came out on May 5 via Sacred Bones Records.
Man Ray (1890 – 1976) was an American naturalized French polymorph artist who spent most of his career in Paris contributing to the Dada and Surrealist movements. He is best known for his pioneering photography, and was a renowned fashion and portrait photographer.
Born in 1890 in the U.S. 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 modes of art making 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 photographs, in particular the camera-less pictures he called “Rayographs,” but few are familiar with his camera work in film. In his silent films, he extended his experimentation with photography to the moving image, playing with chance and light.
