Autoportrait ou Ce qui manque à nous tous

While Man Ray is mostly remembered for his significant contribution to Dada art (in several well-known Dada films), the majority of his work listed on IMDb in fact consists of a series of short home movies he made of various things, none seemingly made with the intent of ever being released. It seems that after the artist's years as a filmmaker, the home movies he made 1923-1938 somehow resurfaced and were compiled in a nearly feature-length collection aptly titled "Home Movies". While nothing in particular is unique about them, they do provide interest to fans of old film - especially those interested in the artist himself.

Unlike others, the title of this one - "Autoportrait ou Ce qui manque à nous tous" -appears to be a label that the artist himself gave the footage (not a working title as in "Dance" or "Juliet"). Although this French text translates to "Self-Portrait or What We All Lack", the film doesn't appear to be much related to this in particular - the subject, as in many amateur films where the cameraman would take samples of everything on one reel to save space, varies from oddly artistic images of bubbles being filled with smoke before bursting to scenes of Man Ray dancing around in a nightgown (perhaps he was drunk?) There are also shots of his friend Lee Miller unveiling some statue and acting very pleased, though the context of much of this is unclear. The bubble shots are the most engaging and interesting to watch, mostly due to how seemingly random yet artistic they come across, but the footage as a whole is overall a cool glimpse into the the life of the filmmaker. An interesting home movie with some clips that could have been put to further use.