Product Description
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Decadent, subversive, and bristling with artistic invention, the
myth-born cinema of Jean Cocteau disturbs as much as it charms.
Cocteau was the most versatile of artists in prewar Paris. Poet,
novelist, playwright, painter, celebrity, and maker of cinema-his
many talents converged in bold, dreamlike films that continue to
enthrall audiences around the world. In The Blood of Poet,
Orpheus, and Testament of Orpheus, Cocteau utilizes the Orphic
myth to explore the complex relationships between the artist and
his creations, reality and the imagination. The Criterion
Collection is proud to present the DVD premiere of the Orphic
Trilogy in a special limited-edition three-disc box set.
Blood of a Poet
"Poets . . . shed not only the red blood of their hearts but the
white blood of their souls," procled Jean Cocteau of his
groundbreaking first film-an exploration of the plight of the
artist, the power of metaphor and the relationship between art
and dreams. One of cinema's great experiments, this first
installment of the Orphic Trilogy stretches the medium to its
limits in an effort to capture the poet's obsession with the
struggle between the forces of life and death. Criterion is proud
to present The Blood of a Poet (Le Sang d'un poète).
Orpheus
Jean Cocteau's 1940s update of the Orphic myth depicts Orpheus
(Jean Marais), a famous poet scorned by the Left Bank youth, and
his love for both his wife Eurydice (Marie Déa) and the
mysterious Princess (Maria Casarès). Seeking inspiration, the
poet follows the Princess from the world of the living to the
land of the deceased through Cocteau's trademark "mirrored
portal." As the myth unfolds, the director's visually poetic
style pulls the audience into realms both real and imagined in
this, the centerpiece to his Orphic Trilogy. Criterion is proud
to present Orpheus (Orphée) in a gorgeous new digital transfer.
Testament of Orpheus
In his last film, legendary writer/artist/filmmaker Jean Cocteau
portrays an 18th-century poet who travels through time on a quest
for divine wisdom. In a mysterious wasteland, he meets several
symbolic phantoms that bring about his death and resurrection.
With an eclectic cast that includes Pablo Picasso, Jean-Pierre
Leáud, Jean Marais and Yul Brynner, Testament of Orpheus (Le
Testament de Orphée) brings full circle the journey Cocteau began
in The Blood of a Poet, an exploration of the torturous
relationship between the artist and his creations. Criterion is
proud to present the last installment of the Orphic Trilogy in a
new digital transfer.
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The Blood of a Poet
"A realistic documentary of unreal situations" reads the
introductory card of Jean Cocteau's debut film, which recalls the
work of the silent surrealists (notably Luis Buñuel and Salvador
Dalí's Un Chien Andalou and L'Âge d'Or). Cocteau uses dream
imagery to explore poetry, artistic creation, memory, death, and
rebirth in four separate fantasy sequences. In the first scene,
an artist confronts his creations when they take on a life of
their own. In the second, he dives through a mirror (a primitive
but startling effect Cocteau refines for Orpheus) and into a
skewed hall where every door reveals a fantastic dream scene. The
third sequence finds a gang of boys turning a snowball fight into
a cruel war, and in the last an audience gathers to witness a
dead boy's resurrection amidst a strange card game. These
descriptions do little to communicate the poetry of each segment,
which rely on creative imagery to create meaning not in stories
but in symbols and metaphors. Cocteau's realization is often
stiff and stilted, the work of a visual artist transforming still
images into an medium that moves through time, but it's never
less than beautiful and evocative. Cocteau returned to many of
the same themes in Orpheus and The Testament of Orpheus. --Sean
Axmaker
Orpheus
A Parisian poet becomes seduced by the prospect of eternal fame
in Jean Cocteau's jazzy 1949 update of the ancient Greek myth of
Orpheus. The café set won't give successful Orpheus (Jean Marais)
the time of day, so he obliges when the Princess of Death (Maria
Casarés) orders him into her Rolls Royce with her injured young
protégé. It isn't long before the poet realizes the commanding
Princess is no ordinary benefactor of the arts; for one thing,
she can travel through mirrors. The next day, Orpheus returns to
his frantic wife Eurydice (Marie Déa) with the kindly chauffeur
Heurtibise (François Périer), but remains distracted by the
Princess and the cryptic messages from her car radio. The equally
smitten Princess eventually takes Eurydice before her time, which
results in an underworld trial about her actions. To get his wife
back, Orpheus must promise to never to look at his wife, but his
heart's not in it. This black-and-white film slyly explores the
dark side of the creative urge with panache. Dreamy and
mesmerizing, it depicts an underworld not too different from
everyday life. With subtitles. --Diane Garrett
The Testament of Orpheus
It is the unique power of the cinema to allow a great many
people to dream the same dream together and to present illusion
to us as if it were strict reality. It is, in short, an admirable
vehicle for poetry." Jean Cocteau, at age 70, thus ruminates on
the life and purpose of the creative artist in a poetic essay.
Cocteau himself stars as a time-traveling poet bopping helplessly
through the ages until an experimental scientist grounds him in a
kind of never-never land where he defends himself to the judges
of Orpheus, dies, and is resurrected to complete his sentence:
"condemned to live." Though the film opens with scenes from
Orpheus, the series of symbolic encounters and surreal images
more resembles The Blood of a Poet. What's different is his
cinematic assurance and sly sense of humor: through with
jokey gags and playful imagery, the film is less philosophical
treatise than career summation by way of farewell party. He's
invited fictional characters (most of the cast of Orpheus) and
real-life friends (cameos range from Brigitte Bardot to Yul
Brynner to Pablo Picasso) from his past and present to send him
off to an uncertain future. The new Home Vision video and
Criterion DVD releases feature the restored color sequence.
Cocteau died in 1963, three years after completing the film.
--Sean Axmaker
