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.

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.

Although this is definitely Jean Cocteau up to his old cinematic tricks, Orphee is beyond criticism as it's Art that has stood the test of time. And updated Classical Art at that. Keep your guard up and you won't get it. But drop your guard and it's still an astonishing film, an allegorical atmospheric magical poetic potboiler, and a film I've seen over 10 times over the decades without failing to admire its self-possession and panache.

Orphee is a self-obsessed cult poet, who gets immersed in writing down and publishing the cryptic word gems the Princess of Death's talking car tells him. "The bird sings with its fingers" is especially ridiculously impressive, but of course, all of this was a reference to Resistance methods during the War of disguising their intentions from the Nazis. Allegorical to ... what? During this period his wife Eurydice is murdered by the Princess, who fancies Orphee while Heurtebise her Underworld chauffeur fancies Eurydice. Hem. This is not only a four dimensional, but a multi-dimensional tour de force, travelling back and forth through the worlds of life and death. The intellectual complexities involved can be enormous, you can lose the plot by thinking too deeply about one line of dialogue, or why "Orpheus's Death" is coming through the mirror at night to look at Eurydice. On the other hand, you might view it all as totally ridiculous and pretentious and laugh out loud at some of the scenes - but that only makes you a realist and not a poet. Auric's dreamy music helps a lot, although Passport to Pimlico keeps coming to mind!

Cocteau revisited Orphee later on near the end of his life, but The Testament of Orphee unfortunately really was pretentious even if startlingly different for 1960 - to quote: "his life had decayed, rotten with success". But this is the Real Secret of Secrets - Orphee is an utterly unique treasure, conceived and executed by an irreplaceable talent - and his second best effort too, after Belle et la Bete! Worth the weight of its nitrate stock in gold.

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).