Cocteau's Orphée: An Analytical Critique

Introduction

Jean Cocteau is a French writer, film director, designer, painter, and draughtsman. One of the most dazzling figures of his time in the intellectual avant-garde, he was the friend of leading painters such as Modigliani and Picasso, and in his work for the theatre he collaborated with, for example, Diaghilev and the composers Erik Satie and Igor Stravinsky. His work included poetry, novels, plays, films, and a large number of paintings, drawings, theatrical designs, and pottery articles. He was self-taught as an artist (Long, pp. 45-56). In his painting and drawing he was much influenced by Picasso, and his favourite themes included the figures of Harlequin, embodying the theatre, and Orpheus, the personification of the poet. This paper presents an analytical critique of Cocteau's Orphée in a concise and comprehensive way.

Cocteau's Orphée: Idea Drive Critique

The film, derived from Cocteau's 1925 play Orphée, revolves around the Poet Orpheus, the conflict with his wife Eurydice, and his struggle with the unknown world of "inspiration" personified by the Princesses. Like the mythical Orpheus's journey to Hades, Cocteau's Orphée must journey to the unknown—herein called the "zone"; which Cocteau, rather than building an artificial set, filmed in the bombed-out military academy of Saint-Cyr (Long, pp. 45-56).

We see that Cocteau drives his ideas from his readings of different sources. Cocteau transposes the legend of Orpheus to a modern Parisian setting complete with a mystical trip through the looking glass into the underworld.

Jean Cocteau's Orpheus is the masterpiece of magical filmaking. Through a narrative treatment of the legend of Orpheus in a modern Parisian setting, it is as inventive and enigmatic as a dream. Orpheus wants to get beyond the limits of human experience, he wants to reach the unknowable -- the mystery beyond mortality. Jean Marais is ideally cast as the successful, popular poet who is envied by the younger poets; his conflicts, his desire to renew himself, his feverish listening for signals from the source of mystery, are the substance of the film. Dark, troubled passionate Maria Casares is his Death; attended by her oaring motorcyclists -- the hooded messengers of death -- she is mystery incarnate (Peters, pp. 23-25).

Cocteau's Orphée as a Feminist Examination of Love and Marriage

Cocteau's Orphée can be termed a feminist examination of love and marriage. “Probably Cocteau's finest film, this is a perfect marriage between Greek legend and his own personal mythology..effectively elaborating the theme of ...