Man Ray

Directing

Man Ray

Born — Died

1890-08-27 — 1976-11-18

Place of birth

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Known for

Directing

Credits

49 titles

Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky, August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American modernist artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal. He produced major works in a variety of media but considered himself a painter above all. He was best known in the art world for his avant garde photography, and he was a renowned fashion and portrait photographer. Ray is also noted for his work with photograms, which he called "rayographs" in reference to himself.

Known for

No artwork available
9.0

Produced for television by Claude-Jean Philippe, the « Encyclopédie audiovisuelle du cinéma », recounts the history of French cinema from its birth to the beginning of the 1960s. With commentary read by Jean Rochefort.

Encyclopédie audiovisuelle du cinéma

1978

Entr'acte poster
7.0

Stop-motion photography blends with extreme slow-motion in Clair's first and most dada film, composed of a series of zany, interconnected scenes. We witness a rooftop chess match between Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray, a hearse pulled by a camel (and chased by its pallbearers) and a dizzying roller coaster finale. A film of contradictions and agreements.

Entr'acte

1924

Poison poster
5.3

Short black and white surrealist film from Man Ray starring himself and Meret Oppenheim.

Poison

1933

Lee Miller: Through the Mirror poster
5.5

Biographical documentary of Lee Miller (aka Elizabeth Miller, 1907-1977), her early years in USA under her father's influence, later became a model turned artist and celebrated photographer, including her photojournalism during WWII, and her second marriage to British surrealism painter Roland Penrose postwar. Film is told through interviews with Miller's son, Antony Penrose.

Lee Miller: Through the Mirror

1996

8 x 8: A Chess-Sonata in 8 Movements poster
6.2

8 x 8: A Chess-Sonata in 8 Movements is an American experimental film directed by Hans Richter, Marcel Duchamp, and Jean Cocteau. Described by Richter as "part Freud, part Lewis Carroll" and filmed partially on the lawn of Duchamp's summer house in Southbury, Connecticut.

8 x 8: A Chess-Sonata in 8 Movements

1957

Grimace poster
NR

Produced over several years between 1962 and 1967, Grimaces shows the faces of over a hundred artists, gallery owners and critics grimacing to the camera.

Grimace

1967

Film credits

2000s · 3 titles

The Truth about Black Dahlia poster
7.3

The unexplained deaths of Elizabeth Short, a.k.a "The Black Dahlia", in 1947 and of Geneva Hilliker Ellroy in 1958, had a profound impact on the psyche of James Ellroy, today's greatest crime writer. Steve Hodel, a retired LAPD cop, reveals everything about Georges Hodel, his own father as well as the perpetratror of those two unsolved murders, the most notorious ones in 20th century America. Steve Hodel retraces this amazing investigation in which genius and horror, Hollywood and the Marquis de Sade, incest and surgery, are blended into the grimmest of scenarios.

The Truth about Black Dahlia

2007

About Special Effects poster
5.0

This film deals with the theme of the heritage left to the underground cinema by the historical avant-garde.

About Special Effects

2001

William Wegman: Video Work 1970-1999 poster
NR

From 1970-1977 William Wegman created some of the most innovative and important works in the history of video. These early pioneering tapes were created using minimal technology and a few studio props, including Wegman’s canine companion, Man Ray. Consisting of 130 works, some no longer than a television commercial, blurred the boundaries between high and low art as well as art and commerce, and have become a major chapter in the histories of contemporary art and film. This exhaustive compilation has been assembled by the artist with restored material and it contains all nine original reels as well as two later reels. Classics such as Pocketbook Man, Milk/Floor, Stomach Song, Cape On, Stick and Tooth, Spelling Lesson, Dog Duet, Man Ray, Do You Want to? Are included.

William Wegman: Video Work 1970-1999

2006

1990s · 3 titles

1920s · 2 titles

Series credits

Behind the camera

Poison poster
5.3

Short black and white surrealist film from Man Ray starring himself and Meret Oppenheim.

Poison

1933

Emak-Bakia poster
6.8

Emak-Bakia (Basque for Leave me alone) is a 1926 film directed by Man Ray. Subtitled as a cinépoéme, it features many techniques Man Ray used in his still photography (for which he is better known), including Rayographs, double exposure, soft focus and ambiguous features. The film features sculptures by Pablo Picasso, and some of Man Ray's mathematical objects both still and animated using a stop motion technique.

Emak-Bakia

1926

Emak-Bakia poster
6.8

Emak-Bakia (Basque for Leave me alone) is a 1926 film directed by Man Ray. Subtitled as a cinépoéme, it features many techniques Man Ray used in his still photography (for which he is better known), including Rayographs, double exposure, soft focus and ambiguous features. The film features sculptures by Pablo Picasso, and some of Man Ray's mathematical objects both still and animated using a stop motion technique.

Emak-Bakia

1926

The Starfish poster
6.9

The romantic relationship between a man and a woman.

The Starfish

1928

The Mysteries of the Chateau of Dice poster
6.6

Mannequin hands hold a pair of dice. A castle is perched on a hilltop. Below it, a posh, modern villa. Meanwhile, far from Paris, two men with masked faces play dice in a bar. They decide to drive to Paris. Country roads, hills, fences. The posh "chateau" appears again: meticulous garden, fancy interior, odd sculptures. And at home? "No one, NO ONE." For the next two days, masked figures play dice, frolic by the pool, perform exercises with a ball. Two new figures arrive. Masked. They search and find the dice. They dance. Mannequin hands hold a pair of dice.

The Mysteries of the Chateau of Dice

1929

The Mysteries of the Chateau of Dice poster
6.6

Mannequin hands hold a pair of dice. A castle is perched on a hilltop. Below it, a posh, modern villa. Meanwhile, far from Paris, two men with masked faces play dice in a bar. They decide to drive to Paris. Country roads, hills, fences. The posh "chateau" appears again: meticulous garden, fancy interior, odd sculptures. And at home? "No one, NO ONE." For the next two days, masked figures play dice, frolic by the pool, perform exercises with a ball. Two new figures arrive. Masked. They search and find the dice. They dance. Mannequin hands hold a pair of dice.

The Mysteries of the Chateau of Dice

1929

Return to Reason: Four Films by Man Ray poster
6.4

An immersion into the surreal and dreamlike world of painter, photographer and filmmaker Man Ray (1890-1976), one of the most prolific American visual artists, through four of his short films, brought to life by the atmospheric music of SQÜRL.

Return to Reason: Four Films by Man Ray

2024

Return to Reason: Four Films by Man Ray poster
6.4

An immersion into the surreal and dreamlike world of painter, photographer and filmmaker Man Ray (1890-1976), one of the most prolific American visual artists, through four of his short films, brought to life by the atmospheric music of SQÜRL.

Return to Reason: Four Films by Man Ray

2024

Return to Reason poster
6.3

Experimental film, white specks and shapes gyrating over a black background, the light-striped torso of Kiki of Montparnasse (Alice Prin), a gyrating eggcrate. One of the first Dadaist films.

Return to Reason

1923

Return to Reason poster
6.3

Experimental film, white specks and shapes gyrating over a black background, the light-striped torso of Kiki of Montparnasse (Alice Prin), a gyrating eggcrate. One of the first Dadaist films.

Return to Reason

1923

La Garoupe poster
5.0

Home movie from Man Ray while on vacation with Pablo Picasso, Paul, Nusch and Cecile Eluard, Emily Davies, Valerie and Roland Penrose. The friends have fun with themselves and performing for the camera.

La Garoupe

1937

No artwork available
NR

In the 1920s, Man Ray directed four films which, although largely unknown by the general public, made him into a major figure in avant-garde cinema. His films were to be as radical as his images or objects. Included: Le Retour à la Raison, Les Mystères du Château du Dé, Emak-Bakia, L'étoile de Mer and collected shorts.

Les Films de Man Ray

2012

Self-Portrait or What We All Miss poster
5.0

Mix of surrealist images of bubbles and smoke with some documentation of the world lived by Man Ray and Lee Miller.

Self-Portrait or What We All Miss

1930

Home Movies poster
NR

Home Movies of Man Ray and Ady Fidelin from 1938. Presents a simple and intimate portrait of the man behind the artist. Compilation of ten Man Ray films: Ady, Dance, Juliet, Rue Campagne-Première, Corrida, Autoportrait ou Ce qui manque à nous tous, Poison, L’atelier du Val de Grâce, Course landaise, La Garoupe

Home Movies

1938

Home Movies poster
NR

Home Movies of Man Ray and Ady Fidelin from 1938. Presents a simple and intimate portrait of the man behind the artist. Compilation of ten Man Ray films: Ady, Dance, Juliet, Rue Campagne-Première, Corrida, Autoportrait ou Ce qui manque à nous tous, Poison, L’atelier du Val de Grâce, Course landaise, La Garoupe

Home Movies

1938

Corrida poster
4.0

A Man Ray documentary short on bullfighting.

Corrida

1929

Ady poster
6.0

Very brief view of Man Ray and his friend Ady Fidelin while at a seaside resort

Ady

1938

Juliet poster
5.0

A late period home movie with Man Ray and his lovely friend Juliet Browner lounging together in the US. Man Ray had returned to America when the Germans occupied France.

Juliet

1940

What Do Young Films Dream About? poster
7.9

A collaboration between Man Ray and Henri Chomette,, half-brother of the filmmaker René Clair.

What Do Young Films Dream About?

1924

L'Atelier du Val de Grâce poster
5.0

Home movie from Man Ray with a view of his home/gallery

L'Atelier du Val de Grâce

1935

Dance poster
5.0

Home movie from Man Ray featuring dancer Jenny gyrating in black and white.

Dance

1938

Rue Campagne-Première poster
5.0

Man Ray shoots from a window on 31 bis rue Campagne-Première, in the heart of Montparnasse, where he rented a ground-floor studio.

Rue Campagne-Première

1923

Course landaise poster
5.0

Short documentary by Man Ray on one his favorite subjects - bullfighting.

Course landaise

1937

Les Chutes des "Mystères du château du Dé" poster
8.0

It is a separate short film made using unused scenes in "Les Mystères du Château de Dé".

Les Chutes des "Mystères du château du Dé"

1929

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Deux femmes

1930

Two Women poster
NR

A series of ten different shots illustrate a variety of lesbian activities. The images are filmed with an aesthetic interest that goes beyond their pornographic content. Despite being found in Man Ray’s collection it’s authorship is questioned and it is difficult to date the film. This film was found in the Parisian studio on Rue Férou by Man Ray's wife Juliet. The completion date could not be established. A little gem of pornographic film, Sapphic mode, coupled with a provocative irony.

Two Women

1930