Orphée (1950)
Country: FR
Technical: bw 112m
Director: Jean Cocteau
Cast: Jean Marais, François Périer, Maria Casarès, Marie Déa, Juliette Gréco
Synopsis:
In an unspecified present a celebrity poet, both adored and mistrusted by his fan base for his increasing association with the state, witnesses the death and delivery to the underworld of a rival talent. He then receives surrealist broadcasts on his car radio which he incorporates in his verses. Meanwhile, Death has fallen in love with him and her chauffeur with Eurydice, his wife...
Review:
Cocteau's most celebrated film, and certainly his best, gets off to a vigorous start and marshals an unprecedented array of in-camera effects conveying the passage to the underworld (the reverse playback device is somewhat obvious but uncannily effective). In addition, the broadcasts from beyond and the motorcycle outriders of death have remained as generic signifiers ever since. Questioning the desirability of immortality on the one hand, and bourgeois gentility on the other, Cocteau also offers a self-portrait embracing several artforms at once, while demonstrating that the cinematograph has the happy distinction of doing what none other can do, even for a personal 'créateur' like Cocteau. Where it is less sure is in providing a coherent working out of its themes of fickle public, compromised artist, plagiarism and necrophilia, but then it is a film poem, to use his term, juggling its ideas with insouciance and remarkable technical dexterity.
Country: FR
Technical: bw 112m
Director: Jean Cocteau
Cast: Jean Marais, François Périer, Maria Casarès, Marie Déa, Juliette Gréco
Synopsis:
In an unspecified present a celebrity poet, both adored and mistrusted by his fan base for his increasing association with the state, witnesses the death and delivery to the underworld of a rival talent. He then receives surrealist broadcasts on his car radio which he incorporates in his verses. Meanwhile, Death has fallen in love with him and her chauffeur with Eurydice, his wife...
Review:
Cocteau's most celebrated film, and certainly his best, gets off to a vigorous start and marshals an unprecedented array of in-camera effects conveying the passage to the underworld (the reverse playback device is somewhat obvious but uncannily effective). In addition, the broadcasts from beyond and the motorcycle outriders of death have remained as generic signifiers ever since. Questioning the desirability of immortality on the one hand, and bourgeois gentility on the other, Cocteau also offers a self-portrait embracing several artforms at once, while demonstrating that the cinematograph has the happy distinction of doing what none other can do, even for a personal 'créateur' like Cocteau. Where it is less sure is in providing a coherent working out of its themes of fickle public, compromised artist, plagiarism and necrophilia, but then it is a film poem, to use his term, juggling its ideas with insouciance and remarkable technical dexterity.
Country: FR
Technical: bw 112m
Director: Jean Cocteau
Cast: Jean Marais, François Périer, Maria Casarès, Marie Déa, Juliette Gréco
Synopsis:
In an unspecified present a celebrity poet, both adored and mistrusted by his fan base for his increasing association with the state, witnesses the death and delivery to the underworld of a rival talent. He then receives surrealist broadcasts on his car radio which he incorporates in his verses. Meanwhile, Death has fallen in love with him and her chauffeur with Eurydice, his wife...
Review:
Cocteau's most celebrated film, and certainly his best, gets off to a vigorous start and marshals an unprecedented array of in-camera effects conveying the passage to the underworld (the reverse playback device is somewhat obvious but uncannily effective). In addition, the broadcasts from beyond and the motorcycle outriders of death have remained as generic signifiers ever since. Questioning the desirability of immortality on the one hand, and bourgeois gentility on the other, Cocteau also offers a self-portrait embracing several artforms at once, while demonstrating that the cinematograph has the happy distinction of doing what none other can do, even for a personal 'créateur' like Cocteau. Where it is less sure is in providing a coherent working out of its themes of fickle public, compromised artist, plagiarism and necrophilia, but then it is a film poem, to use his term, juggling its ideas with insouciance and remarkable technical dexterity.