SQÜRL ORIGINAL MUSIC TO FOUR FILMS BY MAN RAY
In 1923 Man Ray for the first time started to explore the cinema medium with Retour à la raison as a continuity of his paintings. In 2023, as a sign exactly one century after Man Ray was directing his first film, Sqürl, Jim Jarmusch and Carter Logan’s band, creates the semi-improvisational scores onstage. Return to Reason is featuring the four masterpieces of Man Ray: Le retour à la raison (1923), Emak-Bakia (1926), L’étoile de mer (1928) and Les mystères du château du Dé (1929) put end-to-end in their integrality and linked by Sqürl’s music recorded in live. The film forms a dialogue between the short films and the music scores. Between Sqürl and Man Ray.
The blending of these films, along with Sqürl’s singular music as a continuity of his cinematic language, is making them available to be appreciated by a new audience of cinephiles throughout the world. To make them rediscover Man Ray’s poetry, inventiveness and creativity, in a new setting.
Return to Reason’s premiere took place at the prestigious 2023 Cannes Film Festival - Cannes Classics section. As an integral part of the Cannes Film Festival’s official selection, Cannes Classics showcases films that are older than those in the traditional selection and that have marked the history of the seventh art. Beyond Cannes, the film has also been screened at Bologna Il Cinema Ritrovato and New York Film Festival among others.
