Music + Film: Soundtrack by Jim Jarmusch and Carter Logan’s Sqürl

Return to Reason (Le Retour à la raison)
Directed by Man Ray

Sunday, June 23, 3 pm | BUY TICKETS

$12 | $8 Speed and Alliance Française members

A high-water mark of early European avant-garde cinema, these four films that 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—form a seminal nexus of surrealist narrative, dark eroticism, and playful abstraction.

In these shorts, Man Ray began experimenting with the limitless possibilities of montage as well as the direct application onto celluloid of objects such as salt and pepper, pins, and thumbtacks. Juxtaposing undulating geometric patterns, a twirling fairground ride, and a female nude, among other striking images, Man Ray finds subconscious correspondences among seemingly incongruous materials and figures.

For the centennial of Le retour à la raison, the Jim Jarmusch–Carter Logan band SQÜRL presents Return to Reason, a program of four films by Man Ray featuring a newly recorded drone-rock score. The combo’s cosmic sounds beautifully complement Man Ray’s visuals, conjuring notes of the ineffable, the haunting, and the sublime. 1923-29/restoration 2023, France, DCP, 70 minutes.  Recommended for 14+.

The restoration process, led by WOMANRAY and Cinenovo, involved sourcing original prints from all over the world, in partnership with the Cinémathèque française, the Centre Pompidou, the Library of Congress, the CNC, and the Cineteca di Bologna.2023, France, DCP, 70 minutes.  Recommended for 14+.