Man Ray

Directing

Man Ray

Born 1890-08-27 · Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

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.

Acting credits

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

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

Dadascope poster
7.7

Free-associative images are juxtaposed with disorienting poetry in Richter's late work. The film is visual dynamite: Upside-down and reversed footage, play with shadows and light, billiards and dice and balloons-- suggestive and surreal images. Tenets of Dada writing, such as games of chance, punnery, wordplay and loud nonsense noise are foist upon the viewer as Dada poems are read / performed by their orignal authors.

Dadascope

1962

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

Dada poster
8.0

1967 film directed by Greta Deseson about the Dada art movement. Featuring Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Max Ernst, Hans Richter and Gabrièle Buffet-Picabia

Dada

1969

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

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

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

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

No artwork available
NR

"In the piece we see the two dogs staring at the camera in a dark room. Their eyes are intently following something off camera. Sometimes their head movement is pull into the action as they crane to follow the whatever it is in various left right and up down directions. At one point the action seems to stop and the dogs begin to blink in syncopation. At this point Hooka settles down into a lying position but Man Ray remains riveted. Towards the end piece the dogs crane to look behind them and at one miraculous moment their motions counter each other. At the end we see the object of their attention…in my hand, a tennis ball."

Dog Duet

1975

Man Ray: Prophet of the Avant-Garde poster
7.0

Man Ray, the master of experimental and fashion photography was also a painter, a filmmaker, a poet, an essayist, a philosopher, and a leader of American modernism. Known for documenting the cultural elite living in France, Man Ray spent much of his time fighting the formal constraints of the visual arts. Ray’s life and art were always provocative, engaging, and challenging.

Man Ray: Prophet of the Avant-Garde

1997

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

Return to Reason: Four Films by Man Ray poster
6.3

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

Ady poster
6.0

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

Ady

1938

Dance poster
5.0

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

Dance

1938

Un été à la Garoupe poster
8.0

La Garoupe, a beach in Antibes, in 1937. For one summer, the painter and photographer Man Ray films his friends Pablo Picasso, Dora Maar, Paul Eluard and his wife Nusch, as well as Lee Miller. During these few weeks, love, friendship, poetry, photography and painting are still mixed in the carefree and the creativity specific to the artistic movements of the interwar period.

Un été à la Garoupe

2020

No artwork available
NR

Documentary film on Gianfranco Baruchello, Alberto Grifi and Agnese Naldoni's visit to Man Ray's studio.

Filming Man Ray

1990

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

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

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

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Man Ray et les équations shakespeariennes

Behind the camera

Poison poster
5.3

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

Poison

1933

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

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 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

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

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

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

The Starfish poster
6.9

The romantic relationship between a man and a woman.

The Starfish

1928

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

Return to Reason: Four Films by Man Ray poster
6.3

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
6.3

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

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

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Deux femmes

1930

Course landaise poster
5.0

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

Course landaise

1937

Dance poster
5.0

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

Dance

1938

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

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