The opening scenes set in the Cafe des Poetes were originally set to be filmed with regular extras. However, Cocteau found them to be too self-conscious and artificial so they were all dismissed. Instead, real bohemians from Paris' real café culture were drafted in. These proved to be so natural and relaxed with the café setting, they actually stayed on for two extra days after filming had finished, just hanging out in the cafés that the film crew had been using.
Orphee's obsession with deciphering hidden messages contained in random radio noise is a direct nod to the coded messages that the BBC concealed in their wartime transmissions for the French Resistance.
Jean Cocteau had a very specific reason for eschewing optical special effects in Orphée (1950). "I had to make the magic direct, without ever using the laboratory, and showing only what I saw myself and wanted others to see." Thus, when characters walk through mirrors, Cocteau used two rooms, mirror images of each other, and an empty frame between, and doubles for the actors.
In the scenes where Orpheus plunges his hands through a mirror that turns liquid, the mirror was actually a huge tub of mercury, because mercury shows only the reflection, and not what's on the other side. Cocteau recalled that the mercury was dirty, and "had to be polished with chamois, like a silver dish," and the impurities kept floating to the top.
In the scenes where Orpheus plunges his hands through a mirror that turns liquid, the mirror was actually a huge tub of mercury, because mercury shows only the reflection, and not what's on the other side. Cocteau recalled that the mercury was dirty, and "had to be polished with chamois, like a silver dish," and the impurities kept floating to the top.
Jean Cocteau had wanted either Greta Garbo or Marlene Dietrich to play The Princess. Cocteau also reportedly considered Gérard Philipe for Heurtebise, a role eventually played by François Périer.