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JEAN COCTEAU BIOGRAPHY
Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) has been called the most versatile artist of the twentieth century, and in this case hyperbole has at least some basis in reality.
Born to a middle-class family in Paris, he excelled from youth in an almost absurd range of fields: filmmaking, poetry, graphic art, fiction, drama, couture, even postage-stamp design. Most of all, Cocteau was a brilliant, witty, self-invented personality whose talents put him at the forefront of practically every "ism" of the century, from surrealism to modernism to dada. The persistence of fairy tale, mythological, and other classical motifs in his work adds a gravitas — a word Cocteau would no doubt bristle at, as being much too serious — that makes it arguably unique in modern art.
While it’s hard at this point to judge the breadth of his achievement — much of his work outside cinema is difficult to find — his films have been consistently available as staples of the arthouse circuit, cine clubs, and classrooms devoted to the aesthetics of cinema. Cocteau was not prolific in this area: he made only six films over a three-decade period. Of these, four — Beauty and the Beast and the "Orphic trilogy" — stand almost sui generis as representatives of the poetic consciousness in cinema. The Criterion Collection’s recent release of the Orphic trilogy in a DVD boxed set affords a welcome chance to reassess these works that were a crucial part of many cinephiles’ introduction to the art of film. All three benefit from crisp digital transfers, restored sound, and new English subtitle translations.
Jean Cocteau Poem:
Preamble (A Rough Draft For An Ars Poetica)
...Preamble
A rough draft
for an ars poetica
. . . . . . .
Let's get our dreams unstuck
The grain of rye
free from the prattle of grass
et loin de arbres orateurs
I
plant
it
It will sprout
But forget about
the rustic festivities
For the explosive word
falls harmlessly
eternal through
the compact generations
and except for you nothing denotates
its sweet-scented dynamite
Greetings
I discard eloquence
the empty sail
and the swollen sail
which cause the ship
to lose her course
My ink nicks
and there
and there
and there
and there
sleeps
deep poetry
The mirror-paneled wardrobe
washing down ice-floes
the little eskimo girl
dreaming
in a heap
of moist negroes
her nose was
flattened
against the window-pane
of dreary Christmases
A white bear
adorned with chromatic moire
dries himself in the midnight sun
Liners
The huge luxury item
Slowly founders
all its lights aglow
and so sinks the evening-dress ball
into the thousand mirrors
of the palace hotel
And now
it is I
the thin Columbus of phenomena
alone
in the front
of a mirror-paneled wardrobe
full of linen
and locking with a key
The obstinate miner
of the void
exploits
his fertile mine
the potential in the rough
glitters there
mingling with its white rock
Oh
princess of the mad sleep
listen to my horn
and my pack of hounds
I deliver you
from the forest
where we came upon the spell
Here we are
by the pen
one with the other
wedded on the page
Isles sobs of Ariadne
Ariadnes
dragging along
Aridnes seals
for I betray you my fair stanzas
to run and awaken
elsewhere
I plan no architecture
Simply deaf like you Beethoven
blind like you
Homer
numberless old man
born everywhere
I elaborate
in the prairies of inner
silence
and the work of the mission
and the poem of the work
and the stanza of the poem
and the group of the stanza
and the words of the group
and the letters of the word
and the least
loop of the letters
it's your foot
of attentive satin
that I place in position
pink tightrope walker
sucked up by the void
to the left to the right
the god gives a shake
and I walk
towards the other side
with infinite precaution
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