Last May, the Cannes Film Festival debuted the newly restored 4K versions of the films to honor the centennial of Man Ray’s entry into filmmaking. Following the North American premiere at the New York Film Festival last fall, a wider release by distributor Janus Films begins this month, just as Surrealism celebrates its 100th anniversary.

Le Retour à la Raison (1923), Emak-Bakia (1926), L’Étoile de Mer (1928), and Les Mystères du Château du Dé (1929) comprise these wondrous 70 minutes that are now accompanied by a hypnotic avant-garde score, replete with guitar riffs, percussion, and droning synthesizers, by filmmaker Jim Jarmusch and Carter Logan of SQÜRL.

Created two years after his move to Paris, Le Retour à la Raison (Return to Reason) was produced with the encouragement of poet Tristan Tzara for a Dada evening of performance. Man Ray, adapting his process for creating cameraless photographs (photograms he eponymously dubbed “rayographs”), placed objects directly onto celluloid strips and briefly exposed them to light. He fudged the editing by gluing strips together. In his 1963 autobiography, Self Portrait, Man Ray wrote of his early films, “My curiosity was aroused by the idea of putting into motion some of the results I had obtained in still photography.”

For Le Retour’s opening image, he sprinkled salt and pepper on film “like a cook preparing a roast,” as he once put it. Seasonings, dress pins, and thumbtacks pulsate on screen, sometimes reversed as film negatives. These compositions are interspersed with footage such as a revolving carousel’s lights and a woman’s nude torso turning in front of a window. Despite his attempt to adhere to a credo of randomness, Man Ray’s unrelated shots belie his aesthetic attention to line, pattern, and movement.

At its 1923 premiere, his inexpertly mounted film broke twice, causing an uproar. By the principles of Dada: a success.

Emak-Bakia (Leave Me Alone) similarly is the result of playful experimentation with professional camera equipment, a turntable, crystals, lighting, and distorting mirrors. According to Man Ray’s remarks at the screening, the film was “purely optical, made to appeal only to the eyes.”

A vibrating pattern of white on black is followed by a shot of daisies, alternating between the real and the abstract. The legs of model and artist Kiki de Montparnasse, Man Ray’s lover and muse who posed for many of his iconic works such as Le Violon d’Ingres (1924) and Noire et Blanche (1926), appear in t-strap shoes dancing the Charleston while a Black man’s hand strums a banjo. A crossdresser finishes grooming and looks out at the ocean’s lapping waves. Soon, the camera rotates to invert sea and sky, an unusual move for Ray, who more often used a static camera to capture motion, akin to enlivening still pictures. A bit of trickery ends the film as Kiki awakens to reveal that her closed lids had been painted to look like eyes, echoing the film’s opening of Man Ray’s eye looking through a camera lens.

The most cohesive film, L’Etoile de Mer (The Star of the Sea), features a starfish with undulating appendages, providing an erotic motif amid dream-like sequences. An interpretation of Surrealist writings by Robert Desnos, it also stars Kiki.

Early on, through what appears to be smeared glass, a man and a woman climb a staircase to a bedroom. The woman undresses seductively and lies down. Surprisingly, the man departs. In his autobiography, Ray described his process of obscuring the scene to avoid censorship by using soaked gelatin sheets as a filter, “obtaining a mottled or cathedral-glass effect through which the photography would look like sketchy drawing or painting.”

What follows is typical Surrealist delight: scenes of trains and steamships in motion, newspapers flying in the wind, a woman holding a dagger—later a double exposure with a starfish in a jar, and a second man who leads the woman away from the first, to his dismay.

And finally, there is Man Ray’s most elaborate short, Les Mystères du Chateâu du Dé (The Mysteries of the Castle of the Dice), commissioned by Charles de Noailles, one of the day’s leading patrons of avant-garde film, to record his mansion in the South of France and his patrician guests. With the payment, Ray bought the fastest film and newest lenses available to realize his vision for the project. The blocky exterior of the château informed the theme of the film, which drew inspiration from Symbolist Stéphane Mallarmé’s 1897 poem, “A Throw of the Dice Will Never Abolish Chance.”

The film opens with two men in a Parisian café rolling a pair of dice to determine their actions. Over a bumpy road, they drive to a gray cement estate. Using a dolly, Man Ray provides sweeping shots that examine the various angles of the building, the garden’s outdoor sculptures by Pablo Picasso and Joan Miró, and the rest of de Noailles’s extensive art collection.

Back inside the château, guests arrive and cast the die to determine their recreational activities in and around the well-equipped pool and gymnasium. Everyone wears face obscuring silk-stocking masks “for mystery and anonymity,” according to Man Ray. In striped swimsuits, the guests dive, juggle underwater, and flip into headstands as sunlight casts pleasing shadows around the pool. When night falls, a couple tussle in the garden and then freeze into place, posed like statues in a tableau, as the suspenseful soundtrack builds. A wooden hand holds a large pair of dice in the final closeup shot.

What connects these four films, other than their maker? Serendipity and the interdisciplinary art world of Paris in the 1920s. Through mesmerizing images and unexpected drama, Ray created magic in his filmmaking—another successful medium for the prolific and influential artist.

Opening December 20 at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, The Collaboration explores how Andy Warhol, then an aging has-been in the latter portion of his career, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, the art world’s latest rising star whose semi-abstract canvases injected new life into painting and sold handsomely, planned a joint exhibition. Billed as a match between two heavyweights, the pair donned boxing gloves to advertise the show—a clash between the old guard and the new.

Directed by Kwame Kwei-Armah (Casualty), Paul Bettany (WandaVision) is chameleon-like as a sardonic Warhol and Jeremy Pope (Choir Boy, The Inspection) is solid as a tempestuous Basquiat. Both reprise their roles from the original production, staged earlier this year at the Young Vic Theatre in London, where Kwei-Armah is artistic director.

The spirit of a musical presents itself upon entering the Friedman Theatre, with a spinning disco ball and ’80s club music. A backdrop of footage from the era depicts a nostalgic New York City—the Odeon, a young Julian Schnabel, street signs marking the corner of Bowery and Great Jones Street, where Basquiat maintained his studio—setting the stage for a snapshot of the creatively fertile time, on Anna Fleischle’s dynamic set, filled with projections, onto white walls, of works done in Basquiat’s recognizable style.

Written by Anthony McCarten (The Two Popes, Bohemian Rhapsody), the script deftly takes on themes such as the function of art and the mercurial nature of the market, with the specter of death looming, foreshadowing the end for both men, soon after the collaboration.

The play opens with Warhol, chin in hand, taking in a Basquiat exhibit at the gallery of Swiss art dealer Bruno Bischofberger (Erik Jensen, For Life), who represented both artists at the time. Bischofberger approaches Warhol with the idea of a collaboration. (There’s no mention of an earlier venture that included a third artist, Francesco Clemente, and McCarten has taken certain creative liberties with the actual timeline and facts surrounding events portrayed.)

Now in his 50s, Warhol is a superstar whose social life fairly dominates his persona, churning out silkscreen portraits of celebrities, socialites, clients, and more. Joining forces could invigorate his stagnant creativity, and before parting, he agrees under the condition that he can film the hot new artist. Long interested in film, Warhol had recently been experimenting with television at the beginning of the decade. Bettany imbues Warhol with a sadness beneath his cynicism, as the artist is still physically and emotionally scarred from being shot in the chest by Valerie Solanas in 1968. (He would wear a medical corset for the rest of his life.)

Shortly thereafter, a youthful Basquiat enters and Bischofberger exaggerates Warhol’s adulation, and soon both men are on board for the collaboration, taking place at Warhol’s famed studio, The Factory, in Union Square. The two tentatively begin work for the show to be held at the Tony Shafrazi gallery in the fall of 1985.

Warhol ends his “celibacy” of not picking up a paintbrush for 25 years by tracing a projected General Electric logo. Basquiat incorporates his iconic images; crowns, masks, and dinosaurs cover Basquiat’s paintings, talismans for a spiritual invocation. Logos, everyday products, and consumer culture are Warhol’s subjects, however. In reproducing corporate images, Warhol says his goal is to comment in a “neutral way,” not “disturb the comfortable [and] comfort the disturbed” as Basquiat says he chooses to do. He adds that his mother inspired his famed “Campbell’s Soup Cans” series from the early ’60s, saying “Andy, you should do pictures of things that are recognizable to everyone.”

Basquiat’s mother, too, sparked his interest by giving him a copy of Gray’s Anatomy as a child when he was in the hospital after a car crash. He began drawing internal organs and skeletons, and, guided by his Haitian roots, practiced Vodou during a miraculously fast recovery.

The play offers an inside look into what transpired during this dialogue. The two interrogate each other, and as a result familiar and lesser-known biographical details emerge throughout their conversations, becoming a primer on the larger-than-life figures. How Warhol lost his skin pigment and the meaning of Basquiat’s “Samo” signature are two examples. They trade jabs and punches at each other’s ideology, but as the second act begins, the stakes are higher, and emotional volatility peaks, at high volume.

Maya (Krysta Rodriguez, Halston) is in love with Basquiat but knows he has other girlfriends, as well as a drug addiction. He owes her money, and since she can’t track him down, she approaches Warhol in Basquiat’s paint-splattered studio with her urgent request. Rich but miserly, the Pop artist haggles her down to $5,000 to buy a refrigerator covered with Basquiat’s drawings. Rodriguez plays the undeveloped role of an East Village creative to the hilt.

Warhol reports that Michael Stewart, an aspiring Black artist, was critically wounded by New York City cops for spraying graffiti in the subway. (Basquiat’s real-life girlfriend, Suzanne Mallouk, was involved in justice for the police brutality that killed her friend. The character of Maya, is apparently inspired by Mallouk.)

Basquiat returns to the stage, and while waiting for news from the hospital on Stewart’s condition after he was beaten unconscious while in police custody, he creates a painting dubbed Vandalize, that he believes might supernaturally save Stewart, with “the right colors and the right symbols, images, the right magical properties.” Warhol picks up his camera, and what appears to be the live video feed is projected on the studio’s walls.

Basquiat demands that he stop, but then filming continues, surreptitiously. He tells Warhol that the aim of his work is to “bring the dead back to life.” (Vandalize seems to be a stand-in for Defacement (The Death of Michael Stewart), the subject of an exhibition organized by Chaédria LaBouvier at the Guggenheim Museum in 2019.)

When bad news arrives that Stewart has died, Basquiat goes into a manic state and enraged, accuses Warhol of torpedoing the recovery by stealing the spirit of his painting by filming it.

In a heartbreaking finale, Basquiat, holding a syringe, cries out, “I’m not a junkie,” and tells Warhol he’ll go clean. Warhol affirms his partner’s mystical beliefs: “You’ve already brought me back to life,” he says. They look into each other’s eyes, portending the tragedy that lays ahead. The tone shifts and images from their 1985 collaborative show at Shafrazi appear, briefly, as an offstage auctioneer opens bidding at $57 million.

The beautifully performed play resonates with levity and sorrow. Warhol died unexpectedly in 1987, at age 58, after gall bladder surgery. Basquiat had a fatal heroin overdose in 1988, at age 27.

Michelle Williams, who made her name on Dawson’s Creek and had her breakthrough film performance in Brokeback Mountain (2005), is in her wheelhouse playing a troubled character in a small-scale film. She began working with Reichardt in Wendy and Lucy (2008), the heartbreaking story of a vagrant searching for her lost dog. Reichardt, an artist-in-residence at Bard College since 2006, is known for her realistic, unhurried features, of which there are now eight. Her other frequent partners include Portland author Jon Raymond, who co-wrote Showing Up with her, and cinematographer, Christopher Blauvelt, whose unique framing gives the art-world setting an inventive flavor.

To add to a feeling of vérité, Reichardt tapped three actual mid-career artists to advise on this female-focused film. Along with related watercolor studies, Lizzy’s rough-hewn sculptures were created especially for Showing Up by Portland-based ceramicist Cynthia Lahti, who studied at OCAC. To prepare for the role during the pandemic, Williams worked with Lahti over Zoom, learning how to manipulate a block of clay sent to her. New York–based Israeli artist, Michelle Segre, provided Jo’s colored yarn pieces that evoke elaborate dream catchers in a boundless universe, via her longtime dealer Derek Eller. And standing in for pieces by a minor character (Marlene, a teacher who admires Lizzy’s work) are unpolished assemblages by the redoubtable Jessica Jackson Hutchins,another Portland-based artist.

In the midst of preparing for solo gallery shows, Lizzy and Jo’s clashing personalities put them at odds. Confident and successful in her craft, Jo prioritizes her own needs, and puts Lizzy off about the hot water that needs fixing. When Jo rescues an injured pigeon, it’s suddenly Lizzy who is minding it. The cooing bird is by her side in her garage turned studio, as Lizzy molds gray clay into crude female figures, pensive or in motion, to be glazed in unnatural colors. Waving, laughing, or crawling, the figures hint at secret inner worlds.

Meanwhile, Jo is preparing for two shows with full-body gusto—straddling a roll of foam as she plies it into shape for one of her large-scale, fiber pieces that resemble soft mobiles. Shocked that there’s no catalogue ready for her work—a presumptuous expectation—she’s a contrast to introverted Lizzy who leads with vulnerability, sheepishly asking for time off from her day job of menial office work, to concentrate on the finishing touches for the install of her show. Her mother (Maryann Plunkett) is her manager in an administrative role at the school, and even she is a little starry eyed over her daughter’s competitor, Jo.

As the movie progresses, Reichardt shows us around campus, building the tension for the exhibitions’ openings, panning into and out of traditional and experimental art classes. Students weave on huge looms, draw nude models, roll paint, project images on a geodesic dome, and dance outside on the grass in a class called, amusingly, “Thinking and Movement.”

Lizzy invites her brother, Sean (John Magaro), to the gallery opening with her trademark passiveness: “If you’re not busy, maybe you’ll come.” When her mother discusses Sean’s genius, resentment blooms on Lizzy’s face, given that her brother is, in fact, unstable and her mother is sidelining her in the conversation.

With the show’s opening imminent, Lizzy becomes increasingly distressed, and the frustrations keep adding up. In her usual garb of modest, thrift-store clothing, she walks into Jo’s show, mid-install, and eyes her landlord’s spectacular work, including a majestic red wall hanging, beaming like a fiery sun. Her intimidation of her rival is palpable through Williams’ subtle body language. When art assistant Eric (André Benjamin, aka André 3000 of OutKast fame) retrieves some of her sculptures from the kiln, to Lizzy’s horror, one emerges burnt. Easygoing Eric is unfazed and says the damage looks cool, but he is unconvincing.

Angry and hollow-eyed from pulling an all-nighter, Lizzy now boils into a rage and calls Jo to complain about a guest taking her parking spot, and uses the moment to scream about not having hot water. Her focus continues to turn outward, distracting her from the critical work at hand. She finds time to interfere in the lives of her brother and her retired father (Judd Hirsch) who is housing deadbeat visitors. When the day of her opening arrives, she becomes overly concerned with the amount of cheese available on the refreshments table. Family squabbles and side comments add to her mounting anxiety, even while her figurines receive compliments. In a startling twist, the revived pigeon makes an appearance in the gallery, and the focus is no longer on Lizzy and her work, as the swooping bird causes panic in the room.

Then with a shared interest in the pigeon’s aftermath, Lizzy and Jo find a peaceful coexistence, despite their differences.

After debuting at the Cannes Film Festival in May, Showing Up had its North American premiere at the New York Film Festival on October 5 with additional screenings October 6 and October 16 before a larger release by distributor A24.