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.
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| Pavlova and Nijinsky |
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 Parade. Picasso designed its sets, Erik Satie wrote the music, Lèonide Massine (Ljubov in The Red Shoes) choreographed and Cocteau wrote the one-act scenario. Although the Paris opening was a disaster, the ballet went on to become successful.
In another post-World War I venture, Cocteau founded a publishing house, Editions de la Sirene. The company published Cocteau's own work as well as scores by Stravinsky, Satie and a group of composers known as Les Six.
Jean Cocteau's first film was the surrealistic Le Sang d'un poète (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, La Machine Infernal, in the early ‘30s.
In 1946, Cocteau directed his sublime and bewitching film adaptation of the fairytale, La Belle et la Bête (Beauty and the Beast) starring Jean Marais and Josette Day. Director Renè Clèment provided technical assistance, illustrator/designer Christian Bèrard served as costume and production designer (with the exteriors evoking the illustrations of Gustave Dorè and the interior of Belle's family home echoing Vermeer) and composer Georges Auric (Roman Holiday, John Huston's Moulin Rouge) created the Impressionistic score.
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 La Belle et la Bête).
In 1950, Cocteau directed another of his great film works, Orphée (Orpheus). 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...
In 1950, Cocteau directed another of his great film works, Orphée (Orpheus). 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...
1960 brought Cocteau's last film and the final installment in his 'Orphic Trilogy' (along with The Blood of a Poet and Orpheus): Le Testament d'Orphèe (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, MarÃa Casares, Jean-Pierre Leaud and Françoise Sagan.
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 Édith Piaf. In 1940, Cocteau had written a hit play for Piaf, Le Bel Indiffèrent, and in the early '50s he wrote an article that was instrumental in reviving her career. It was Cocteau who, in 1948, introduced American wunderkind 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.
Jean Cocteau died at age 74 at his chateau in Milly-la-Foret, France, on October 11, 1963 after learning of the death of Édith 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.
David Thomson has aptly described Cocteau as "a comet passing over French cinema, throwing a vivid light on the landscape..."
David Thomson has aptly described Cocteau as "a comet passing over French cinema, throwing a vivid light on the landscape..."
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| Le Testament d'Orphèe (1960) |
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