Four by Man Ray:
“Return to Reason is an impromptu assemblage first shown at a dada soirée; René Clair called it ‘the desperate but not useless revolt against descriptive and anecdotic cinema.' Emak Bakia (‘leave me alone,' in Basque) reaches from dada to surrealism, thanks to a woman's eyes and her double awakening. Etoile de Mer (Sea Star) takes its scenario from a poem by the surrealist poet Robert Desnos. Ado Kyrou calls it the ‘perfect cinematographic illustration of a poem.... Poem and image form a new poem, that will speak to each spectator a different and infinitely free language.' Les Mysteres du Chateau de Des (Mysteries of the Chateau of Dice) is an anti-home movie that casts new light on Mallarmé's phrase: ‘A throw of the dice will never abolish chance.'
• Directed by Man Ray. (1923-29, 66 mins, silent, Print from Kit Parker Films)

The Seashell and the Clergyman (La Coquille et le Clergyman)
“While Germaine Dulac, the director, completely misconstrued Antonin Artaud's scenario (which he said ‘investigated the somber truth of the spirit') and confused surreality (i.e., more reality) with a facile, artsy ‘dreaminess,' Ado Kyrou considers this the first surrealist film: ‘The scenario is very beautiful; charged with eroticism and furor, it could have given birth to a film of the same class as L'Age D'Or....'
• Directed by Germaine Dulac. Written by Antonin Artaud. With Alex Alin. (1928, 27 mins, silent, Print from Kit Parker Films)

Rose Hobart
“Cornell recut East of Borneo (starring Rose Hobart) to bring out the obsessive, the erotic, the marvellous images latent in the trashy jungle romance picture. Rose Hobart is elemental and beautiful, like the final eclipse of the sun beneath a woman's gaze.
• Directed by Joseph Cornell. Taken from East of Borneo, directed by George Melford, Produced by Columbia, 1931. With Rose Hobart. (1937, 13 mins, color (filter tinted), Print from Film-Makers' Cooperative)

Anemic Cinema
“Like Duchamp's other work, a critique of the image (here reduced to its essential function as seducer) in favor of poetic thought, whose possibility is demonstrated negatively with puns that destroy nondialectical logic.” --Notes by James Brook
• Directed by Marcel Duchamp. Discs by Duchamp. Photographed by Man Ray and Marc Allegret. (1926, 6 mins, silent, Print from Kit Parker Films)