Nuanced Terror: Jack Clayton's The Innocents

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicH-e8mFI_SW9POdM0_GT7X6mWo6WqaqbL4BpSwtZRhPTiJ2WiG_tWkjzgAqt1mr_eXT16CAT2joJ5xgtkNsqEUMhMa6zDPivQ8NRdvvXXY0azay_5MiLsM-9VWc1vSOey6-Bo05thaPXe/s1600/innocents+2+b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicH-e8mFI_SW9POdM0_GT7X6mWo6WqaqbL4BpSwtZRhPTiJ2WiG_tWkjzgAqt1mr_eXT16CAT2joJ5xgtkNsqEUMhMa6zDPivQ8NRdvvXXY0azay_5MiLsM-9VWc1vSOey6-Bo05thaPXe/s1600/innocents+2+b.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Light and shadow flicker across the screen. Sobs are heard as a pair of praying hands, clasping and unclasping, appear. The sobbing continues.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">A woman’s suffering face appears above the tortured hands. Birds twitter…her distraught voice whispers…</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">All I want to do is save the children not destroy them. More than anything I love children. More than anything they need affection, love, someone who will belong to them and to whom they will belong.</span></i><br /><a name='more'></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And then, as a man’s voice asks, “Do you have an imagination?,” the screen suddenly focuses on a well-appointed office, an elegant gentleman and the woman whose face we have already seen…who now sits in a chair and speaks animatedly with this man as he continues to ask questions and explain the situation he offers. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMvU7f_2Yyk4vviHoRnzhqUyeJd2MVgPxn4Sh6gTtwN9W7An7lbbx_leT3BXlfzGqRdh4S43Az0LU7FxbMsZiRuqpY6QNX2qJifvwoR1HcMxTlycLV_hT6_ppID1Dew0yvK4sUrhT5dxNw/s1600/innocents+clayton.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMvU7f_2Yyk4vviHoRnzhqUyeJd2MVgPxn4Sh6gTtwN9W7An7lbbx_leT3BXlfzGqRdh4S43Az0LU7FxbMsZiRuqpY6QNX2qJifvwoR1HcMxTlycLV_hT6_ppID1Dew0yvK4sUrhT5dxNw/s1600/innocents+clayton.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Director Jack Clayton</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">These first moments of Jack Clayton’s masterful 1961 film, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Innocents</i>, set the stage for a chilling and absorbing tale of bewitchment. Deborah Kerr stars as Miss Giddens, an anxious, fragile-seeming young woman who begins her first assignment as a governess for two orphaned children on a remote estate. Michael Redgrave briefly portrays the gentleman, Miss Giddens’ employer, whose questions and revelations prime and subtly spook her before she sets foot in the stately home where events will unfold.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The story intensifies when Miss Giddens arrives at Bly, a magnificent manor that far exceeds her expectations in its grandeur and beauty. She is “very excited, indeed” to be there and her two “angelic” and precocious charges easily charm her. An earthy housekeeper, Mrs. Grose (Megs Jenkins), serves to ground the excitable governess whose journey proceeds from enchantment to confusion, to torment and disintegration.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">American novelist Henry James wrote <u>The Turn of the Screw</u>, the basis for this film, in 1898 while living in England in a large rambling mansion. James has recorded that the story was suggested to him by an anecdote he heard from the Archbishop of Canterbury. This scrap of a tale concerned young children haunted by the malevolent ghosts of a pair of servants who tried, again and again, to lure them to their deaths.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvzcB0zbEi-q79brohDO5nlIrXslCo08XgZNntlEbdag-S_019xhst6Mb2gPWjHCbNbk0x_noXWX3Te7wfhLEe0rZ67R5Ep5gWDFbtsIsfKRy0qdNXe_FjRlytbXVQzFFRuKz5PVGyW2pb/s1600/innocents+james.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvzcB0zbEi-q79brohDO5nlIrXslCo08XgZNntlEbdag-S_019xhst6Mb2gPWjHCbNbk0x_noXWX3Te7wfhLEe0rZ67R5Ep5gWDFbtsIsfKRy0qdNXe_FjRlytbXVQzFFRuKz5PVGyW2pb/s320/innocents+james.jpg" width="258" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Novelist Henry James</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The James novella depicts a young governess on her first assignment, the care of two children living in a grand mansion on a sprawling estate. The plot deepens when the young woman, daughter of a vicar, begins to suspect the presence of the evil spirits of two deceased servants.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">It was several years after James’ book was published before critics began to wrangle in earnest over the interpretation of the story. By the 1920s several had proposed that <u>The Turn of the Screw</u> was less a ghost story and more the tale of inexperienced and high-strung governess who succumbed to hallucinations and madness. A 1934 essay by prominent critic Edmund Wilson dramatically advanced this view.  Henry James himself was equivocal about his intentions, and statements he made on the subject have been cited to support both <i>apparitionist</i> and <i>non-apparitionist</i> views. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Fascination with <u>The Turn of the Screw</u> failed to wane over the years and it has been adapted from the page to other mediums including opera, the stage and TV as well as film. In February 1950, Peter Cookson’s production of William Archibald’s stage adaption of the James novella debuted on Broadway as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Innocents</i>; Oscar-winner Beatrice Straight (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Network</i>) starred as the governess.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Eleven years later the play was adapted to film by British director, Jack Clayton (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Room at the Top</i>). Though William Archibald was involved, it was Truman Capote who was </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">primarily responsible for the polished screenplay. </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Capote endeavored to maintain the story’s ambiguity as he felt Henry James had originally conceived it by artfully dodging the central question: Are the ghosts real or are they the fantasies of a governess gone mad? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglBZH7FCz9oM7ojgn1FtMMtr0gAHA3aaNH6kfICmL_hWMDA4cMBuZWUK1G2ELcHWrLIEh8rHcTd335bHOIIZ4ZUWlVP-PdRz5WT5WJRSANT7-yuvoiYAbaJrUi3yqduO6RWEL_pvN0rcGI/s1600/innocents+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglBZH7FCz9oM7ojgn1FtMMtr0gAHA3aaNH6kfICmL_hWMDA4cMBuZWUK1G2ELcHWrLIEh8rHcTd335bHOIIZ4ZUWlVP-PdRz5WT5WJRSANT7-yuvoiYAbaJrUi3yqduO6RWEL_pvN0rcGI/s400/innocents+1.jpg" width="293" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Taking the modern view, it’s not difficult to interpret <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Innocents</i> as an intricately staged reflection on an unstable woman’s descent into madness: the film closely follows the increasingly erratic behavior and visible deterioration of the omnipresent governess; no one but the governess actually “sees” the ghosts she claims are present; by the film’s end, even the sensible and supportive housekeeper is at odds with the hysterical young woman…and there are many visual clues that the governess may be projecting her own imaginings onto her surroundings. It is no stretch these days to believe that a deranged governess would be capable of terrifying a frightened child to death.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But, viewed from another perspective, the tale can also be read as the story of an inexperienced but well-meaning young woman confronted with the supernatural in the form of malicious spirits. Her fervid determination to save the children from possession could explain her unorthodox behavior. And that is what most people believed when <u>The Turn of the Screw</u> was first published. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Enigmatic and haunting, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Innocents</i> leaves the audience to its own conclusions. A luminous turn by Deborah Kerr (in her own favorite film performance), Freddie Francis’ atmospheric cinematography, the script of Archibald and Capote and Georges Auric’s original music all mesh under Jack Clayton’s sure hand to create the acknowledged masterpiece among the many adaptations of <u>The Turn of the Screw</u>. </span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/FVEu8wV1QIA" width="560"></iframe></div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><br /><span style="color: #990000; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><b>Waitin' on a Sunny Day</b> is hosting a <b>Deborah Kerr Blogathon</b> in celebration of the 90th anniversary of the actress's birth...<a href="http://sophie-waitinonasunnyday.blogspot.com/2011/09/darling-deborah-blogathon-posts.html"><b>Click here</b></a> for more on participating blogs.</span><br /><br /><div style="color: black;"><i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The Innocents </span></i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">airs today (1:45pm Eastern/10:45am Pacific) on <b>Turner Classic Movies</b> as part of its morning/afternoon spotlight on the films of Deborah Kerr. Here's the full schedule (all times Eastern/Pacific):</span></div><div style="color: black;"><br /></div><div style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">6:00am/3:00am <i>Count Your Blessings</i> (1959), co-starring Rossano Brazzi</span></div><div style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">8:00am/5:00am <i>If Winter Comes </i>(1947), co-starring Walter Pidgeon</span></div><div style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">10:00am/7:00am <i>Black Narcissus</i> (1947), a masterwork from Powell & Pressburger</span></div><div style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">11:45am/8:45am <i>The End of the Affair </i>(1955), co-starring Van Johnson</span></div><div style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">1:45pm/10:45am <i>The Innocents </i>(1961), reviewed here...with Michael Redgrave</span></div><div style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">3:30pm/12:30pm <i>The Journey </i>(1959), co-starring Yul Brynner</span></div><div style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">5:45pm/2:45pm <i>The Sundowners</i> (1960), co-starring Robert Mitchum </span></div><div style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span></div></div>

Deborah Kerr Freddie Francis Georges Auric Henry James Jack Clayton Meg Jenkins Michael Redgrave The Innocents The Lady Eve (author) The Turn of the Screw Nuanced Terror: Jack Clayton's The Innocents

Light and shadow flicker across the screen. Sobs are heard as a pair of praying hands, clasping and unclasping, appear. The sobbing continues.A woman’s suffering face appears above the tortured hands. Birds twitter…her distraught voice whispers…All I…

Read more »

Jean Cocteau...born July 5, 1889...

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIf9cinSC3AVrC_Wt73Im6EK8dZMWM-okdqAATkLuiev9Ebyf0rxn2oc2KiCbNhd_xVkqJcBhjHyXZYPXjcqVHNF4pEp88g566ULLd6kFwnCFjBniALKp8BBtUpBZyFyPHjOajXiHfjF6L/s1600/Cocteau+portrait+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIf9cinSC3AVrC_Wt73Im6EK8dZMWM-okdqAATkLuiev9Ebyf0rxn2oc2KiCbNhd_xVkqJcBhjHyXZYPXjcqVHNF4pEp88g566ULLd6kFwnCFjBniALKp8BBtUpBZyFyPHjOajXiHfjF6L/s320/Cocteau+portrait+2.jpg" width="265" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Jean Cocteau, French filmmaker/poet/writer/artist and more (dramatist, boxing manager...), was born July on 5, 1889, into a prominent and bourgeois family in Maissones-Lafitte - a village not far from Paris. His father, an attorney and amateur artist, took his own life when the boy was just nine; young Cocteau was soon enrolled in a private school. After he was expelled in 1904, he ran off to Marseilles.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><a name='more'></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-ujFXXf1hyphenhyphenQ0OK8pbnNfSBUUxeQJos_hfu9tMpd1pChNLcj5wlI0Kb8COn1-lF-y8DvW1e8nR67FA8VPVeGEGfmUhyfX1NYEa0UEKlv-9dv_YKY3H-iSxgznB6cbV11rUSW5GoCzAwH31/s1600/Anna+Pavlova+Vaslav+Nijinsky+Armida+n+slave+in+Armida%2527s+Pavilion+1907.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-ujFXXf1hyphenhyphenQ0OK8pbnNfSBUUxeQJos_hfu9tMpd1pChNLcj5wlI0Kb8COn1-lF-y8DvW1e8nR67FA8VPVeGEGfmUhyfX1NYEa0UEKlv-9dv_YKY3H-iSxgznB6cbV11rUSW5GoCzAwH31/s320/Anna+Pavlova+Vaslav+Nijinsky+Armida+n+slave+in+Armida%2527s+Pavilion+1907.jpg" width="198" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pavlova and Nijinsky</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: 12pt;">In 1909, Cocteau met Sergei Diaghilev, the Russian impresario who launched the Ballets Russes, a company whose principal dancers then were Anna Pavlova and Vaslav Nijinsky. Diaghilev encouraged Cocteau to write for the ballet and it was he who famously challenged Cocteau, "Ettonne-moi!" (Astonish me!). Cocteau responded with the libretto for the ballet <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Le Dieu Bleu</i>. Cocteau also first encountered Igor Stravinsky around this time. The composer was in the process of writing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Rite of Spring</i> when the two met and, while visiting Stravinsky in Switzerland in 1914, Cocteau completed his first novel, <u>Le Potomak</u>.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">In 1917 Cocteau met Pablo Picasso. Together they traveled to Rome and met with Diaghilev.  The two were soon involved in Diaghilev's production of the ballet <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Parade</i>. Picasso designed its sets, Erik Satie wrote the music, L</span><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">è</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">onide Massine (Ljubov in <i>The Red Shoes</i>) choreographed and Cocteau wrote the one-act scenario. Although the Paris opening was a disaster, the ballet</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> went on to become successful. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">In another post-World War I venture, Cocteau founded a publishing house, <i>Editions de la Sirene</i>. The company published Cocteau's own work as well as scores by Stravinsky, Satie and a group of composers known as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Les Six</i>.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Jean Cocteau's first film was the surrealistic <i>Le Sang d'un po</i></span><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">è</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><i>te</i> (The Blood of a Poet). Released in 1930, it was an early experimental reflection of his personal mythology. Cocteau also wrote what some consider his greatest play, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La Machine Infernal</i>, in the early ‘30s. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">In 1946, Cocteau directed his sublime and bewitching film adaptation of the fairytale, <i>La Belle et la B</i></span><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">ê</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">te</i> (Beauty and the Beast) starring Jean Marais and Josette Day. Director Ren</span><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">è</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> Cl</span><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">è</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">ment provided technical assistance, illustrator/designer Christian B</span><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">è</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">rard served as costume and production designer (with the exteriors evoking the<span style="color: #990000;"> </span>illustrations of Gustave Dor</span><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">è</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">and the interior of Belle's family home echoing Vermeer) and composer Georges Auric (<i>Roman Holiday</i>, John Huston's <i>Moulin Rouge</i>) created the Impressionistic score.</span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;"></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/2N6Nmf-tVDo" width="425"></iframe><br /><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Marlene Dietrich reportedly was with Cocteau when the film was first screened at a studio in Paris and, at the end, after the beast had transformed into a prince, she called out to the screen, "Where is my beautiful beast?" (I felt the same the first time I saw </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><i>La Belle et la B</i></span><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">ê</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">te</i></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">). </span><br /><span style="font-size: 12pt;">  </span><br /><span style="font-size: 12pt;">In 1950, Cocteau directed another of his great film works, </span><i><span lang="FR" style="font-size: 12pt;">Orphée</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="FR" style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">(Orpheus)</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">. A contemporary reading of the myth of Orpheus imbued with Cocteau's pet motifs, Jean Marais starred as modern-day poet Orpheus who descends into the Underworld to retrieve his wife, Eurydice. No subtitles are necessary for the following scene..</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/KCYcWpMDWLQ" width="425"></iframe></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">1960 brought Cocteau's last film and the final installment in his 'Orphic Trilogy' (along with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Blood of a Poet </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Orpheus)</i>: <i>Le Testament d'Orph</i></span><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">è</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><i>e</i> (The Testament of Orpheus). An intricate 'home movie,' the film starred Cocteau as an 18th-century poet seeking divine wisdom and included cameos by everyone from Pablo Picasso and Yul Brynner to Jean Marais, Mar</span><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">í</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">a Casares, Jean-Pierre Leaud and Fran</span><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">ç</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">oise Sagan.</span><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK-69nCOxM52BWkyOCWBRfb5D2P9PEYj1aUaAAqTAdnGrQErk8kyCnldN1POc6azLusfqdYu_pFrbLD4A3ReuskwbNi_EtHYVM3ya1lkNyyRKQ0syCN0dtpRl6Gp7Orv15R2ifjFt_fyse/s1600/Piaf+le+bel+indifferent.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK-69nCOxM52BWkyOCWBRfb5D2P9PEYj1aUaAAqTAdnGrQErk8kyCnldN1POc6azLusfqdYu_pFrbLD4A3ReuskwbNi_EtHYVM3ya1lkNyyRKQ0syCN0dtpRl6Gp7Orv15R2ifjFt_fyse/s1600/Piaf+le+bel+indifferent.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Cocteau led a high profile life all his adult years. Friend and collaborator of Picasso, Stravinsky, Satie and Diaghilev, he was also an intimate of French icons Collette and </span><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">É</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">dith Piaf. In 1940, Cocteau had written a hit play for Piaf, <i>Le Bel Indiff</i></span><i><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">è</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><i>rent</i>, </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">and in the early '50s he wrote an article that was instrumental in reviving her career. It was Cocteau who, in 1948, introduced American <i>wunderkind</i> Truman Capote to Collette. Cocteau had told Collette about Capote, "Don't be fooled...he looks like a ten-year-old angel. But he's ageless, and has a very wicked mind." Collette and Capote bonded and he cherished the gift she gave him that day for the rest of his life.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Jean Cocteau died at age 74 at his chateau in Milly-la-Foret, France, on October 11, 1963 after learning of the death of </span><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">É</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">dith Piaf. Legend has it that Cocteau heard the news, remarked, "Ah, la Piaf est morte. Je peux mourir aussi..." (Ah, Piaf is dead. I can die, too) and suffered a fatal heart attack.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 12pt;">David Thomson has aptly described Cocteau as "a comet passing over French cinema, throwing a vivid light on the landscape..." </span><br /><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW_oWSDLLZO0I5j2PRdkaXE-6B4NFpIBaf3IvjOwPCEItsUxVafKeZUIh3JjYXvfHOjVyv948X73z8EbJ2UueIkNtOWTnkifTvQTmlbD9Q8xudEC4ak067yk7c1efIVoRJ4hAYWNMOl7Io/s1600/Testament.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW_oWSDLLZO0I5j2PRdkaXE-6B4NFpIBaf3IvjOwPCEItsUxVafKeZUIh3JjYXvfHOjVyv948X73z8EbJ2UueIkNtOWTnkifTvQTmlbD9Q8xudEC4ak067yk7c1efIVoRJ4hAYWNMOl7Io/s320/Testament.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Le Testament d'Orph</i></span><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: x-small;">è</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>e </i>(1960)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>

Christian Berard Edith Piaf Erik Satie Georges Auric Igor Stravinsky Jean Cocteau Jean Marais La belle et le bete Orphee Pablo Picasso Rene Clement Sergei Diaghilev Jean Cocteau...born July 5, 1889...

Jean Cocteau, French filmmaker/poet/writer/artist and more (dramatist, boxing manager...), was born July on 5, 1889, into a prominent and bourgeois family in Maissones-Lafitte - a village not far from Paris. His father, an attorney and amateur artist…

Read more »