An excerpt from Blood Of A Poet, 1930 by Jean Cocteau. Cocteau did everything...he was a poet, novelist, playwright, film maker, costume designer, artist, jazz drummer, opium addict, catholic, surrealist, homosexual, member of the Legion of Honor...he was the twentieth century and totally original.
4 comments:
Praise be, he was!
I started to appreciate Cocteau when I was 18 and saw Blood Of A Poet.
Though my experiences are very different than his, I gained much inspiration and motivation from the enrgy of this enigmatic human.
Perhaps there is a common pain we shared?
None the less, his statement about being criticized because his activities,"dispersed his genius" was inspirational, he said that he was totally possessed by what he was doing at any given time.
It is only after years laer, that I have begun to appreciate the true genius of his graphic work. His drawings are like Charlie Parker's Sax improvisations.
Very clever cinematography for that era.
Mudrake, if you have never seen the film, you owe it to yourself to see it.
Most of the effects were invented for the film.
The scene with the mirror was done with a pool of water. In the actual movie, it is much more dramatic and impressive.
The talking statue only aquires it ability to speak after the artist draws a picture on a canvas, the mouth in the portrait begins to speak to him, he erases the mouth with his hand, the mouth is on the palm of his hand and continues to speak to him...
He kisses his hand...there is an "interlude with the hand"
than he rubs his hand on the face of the statue, transfering the mouth. The statue tells him he must enter the mirror....
Cocteau was a great artist because he was able to create his own mythology and show it to us. Things made sense on a much deeper level.
Years later, he made the fim, "Testament of Orpheus" in which he enacts his own death and ressurection...the set is tranformed into a theater with balconies with Picasso and Gala Dali as extras.
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