Orphée

Jean Cocteau is a complete aesthetic package and I love him.

Cocteau seems to get an idea for a film based around some themes that spark ideas in him, and then includes a lot of images purely for aesthetic reasons. His films seem to belong to no real tradition. He's a tradition unto himself.

One of the things that really seems to be on his mind here is the middle aged slump into mediocrity. He was 60 years old when he made this film, so his Orpheus's fear that his artistic power has waned must have been a real concern. If you make a film this beautiful, you needn't worry.

I love that his film has poetry groupies who swarm poets for autographs. The suggestion that Orpheus may have plagiarized Cégeste's work causes poets to storm his house. What a world!

This film is all sleek black leather and beautiful lo-fi special effects.

Juliette Gréco and Jean-Pierre Melville show up.

1- A film should convey its meaning mostly not in words but moving pictures, otherwise some other form of expression must be used. If you take out the words from this film, you would be left with careless camera-work and settings (see 1931 film Nosferatu for a much careful camera work and settings- and a much better rising from the coffin scene-19 years earlier). Instead of making a film, Cocteau could publish a book of intellectual sentences decorated with still photography and we would not miss a thing."I am your death" may be an effective sentence by itself, but only in poems. If you use such sentences in a film, you must support it with visual elements in some way. 2- Many positive criticism centers on the symbolism hidden. Somebody symbolizes "poet", other one "death", we see how "poet" prefers art (that is listening to radio) to life, how "poet" is fascinated by "death".... But this is dry symbolism appealing only to the intellect but not meant to be felt. Trying to comprehend the feelings of a "poet" could be good, but instead, we are expected to appreciate his/her drama and "poetic cause". Do watchers feel any emotional contact with the "poet"? I don't think so. That is; film should appeal much much more to senses and emotions than the intellect. 3- Many other positive criticism, on the other hand, mentions innovative camera tricks, etc... You can see all of them in films from much earlier times. For example, rising from bed is done much better in Nosferatu(1931). If careless effects usage was intentional, what was the aim? Some intellectual explanation like "reversal just like from death back to life" might just make me laugh.

All in all, we should not make injustice to excellent movies which can alter our emotions by comparing them with self-indulgent appraisal of artistic pain.

I saw the movie, or most of it, around the age of eight or nine. It made a deep impression on me, and I have wanted to watch it again. Now that I have been able to find out the name and the director, I soon will!

The special effects in the film, as I recall them, must have been fabulous for the time, and were quite dazzling even by the standards of the eighties. The movie is surreal, and though it sounds trite, this is perhaps the best description. It left one with a delicious feeling, and even after almost twenty years I feel quite thrilled when I think about it. I found the notion of being in love with death, who is portrayed by María Casarès, and whom I found incredibly attractive, was overwhelmingly wonderful. That was my interpretation at that time. I am curious to see what I would think of it now.

Certainly a terrific film for a child. I think I would still find it wonderful.

This film is an updating of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. The film updates the action to post-war France, with Orpheus (played by Jean Marais) a famous but dis-satisfied poet.

The film focuses on the themes of love and death. Most notably Orpheus falling in love with a glamorous incarnation of Death (Maria Casares).

Writer-director Jean Cocteau turns the everyday world into a magical realm. Mirrors turn to pools which are portals to other worlds, car radios pick up coded messages from Death's World. In less talented hands than Cocteau's, the delicate fantasy could have easily become ridiculous but he handles it with brilliance and the film works perfectly.

Here Cocteau creates a truly poetic film. The story is magical and entertaining and the film is filled with wonderously surreal images (particularly striking is the frequent use of filming an action performed backwards, and then reversing it which creates a very strange impression).

There's nothing better than a dark involved movie about death to bring you out of your blues. Having been laid off today from a high-tech, high-paying job, I find that this is a far better escape from my blues than getting skunk-drunk. Now I'll be able to afford the time to see such movies...this was at the Brattle Theater, an arts movie house in Cambridge that regularly shows movies written when brains were necessary to write a script that would be made into a movie. Of course, I saw it way back when but the mark of a good movie is that you see a different movie every time you see it, because YOU change and your interpretation therefore changes. The surreal scenes in the Underground evoke many other images, and, because of their wierdness, cannot be forgotten. It raises questions about the 'finality' of death, and the relative unimportance of so much in life (including jobs/employment). The love of the two protagonists for one another is especially intriguing, since Cocteau at first gives you the impression that Orpheus is a narcissistic writer only in love with himself.

The fierce command for Orpheus NOT to look at Eurydice reminds you of Lot's wife, as she turned into the pillar of salt. Of course, I still wonder why that part was in here.....maybe just to make us wonder about disobedience.

The mob throwing rocks at the house was indicative of mob mentality everywhere and anytime.

The motorcyclists, angels of death, remind you of "The Wild One" as they perform their ghastly tasks in the small French town. As the other dead people make their sacrifices for one another, with no mention of religion, you almost have a re-awakened faith in the power of love. Which is what religion is all about anyhow,-- not in the ghost stories we are told to help make the fear of death/nothingness more pallatable.

Cocteau was a genius, and his movies are unique. Invest in them while you can, and re-visit them from time to time when you need a reminder of how precious love and life are.