COCTEAU, JEAN

(1889-1963)

Director and screenwriter. Jean Cocteau was born in Paris to a family from the wealthy Parisian bourgeoisie. Cocteau's father, a lawyer, was an important force in the young Cocteau's life, and he was deeply affected when his father committed suicide. Cocteau was only nine at the time. Cocteau undertook secondary studies, but abandoned them when he left home at the age of fifteen. He quickly took to literature, publishing his first volume of poetry at the age of only nineteen. His early success, and perhaps his family background, gave Cocteau access to the world of the Parisian literati, and Cocteau, even in his early twenties, found himself in the company of such literary greats as Marcel Proust and André Gide. He kept company with Picasso, with Apollinaire, with the Russian dancer Sergei Diaghilev, who inducted Cocteau formally into the avant-garde, by challenging him to write a ballet. Cocteau did so, andParade, a thoroughly modern ballet, was produced, with the aid of Pablo Picasso, in 1917.

Cocteau was mobilized by the military to serve in World War I. He drove an ambulance during his military service, and in that context, he met the novelist Raymond Radiguet. The two shared an intense personal connection, and Cocteau helped launch Radiguet in his literary career. Possibly as a result of his connection to Radiguet, who died from typhoid in 1923, Cocteau began to experiment with the novel, and he would go on to publish a number of them, most notablyLes Enfants terribles(1929). In the 1930s, Cocteau also began dabbling in the theater and the cinema. He made his first film,Le Sang d'un poète, in 1931, and also collaborated withMarcel CarnéandRobert Bresson.

It was the 1940s, however, before Cocteau undertook filmmaking in earnest. He wrote the screenplay forMarcel L'Herbier'sLa Comédie du bonheur(1942) as well as forJean Delannoy's classic filmL'Eternel retour(1943).He then thrust himself into making a series of his own films.La Belle et la bête(1947), Cocteau's avant-garde vision of the Madame Le Prince de Beaumont fairytale, is considered a classic film and is perhaps the best film he made. It remains a stunning cinematic work to this day, and was, for its day, a technically advanced piece of filmmaking, particularly with respect to special effects. This film was followed byLes Parents terribles(1948), starringJean Maraisas a twenty-something who is tied to his parents. This in turn was followed byL'Aigle a deux têtes(1948), the story of an impossible love between an anarchist and a queen, played by Marais andEdwige Feuillière, respectively. Cocteau's next film,Orphée(1949), also starred Marais, and is a retelling of the classic Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice. The film is widely considered one of Cocteau's best works in any genre, and it is a masterpiece of cinema. Cocteau's last film wasLe Testament d'Orphée(1960), a proto-mythical meditation on the role of the poet.

In general, Cocteau's films are meticulously crafted, stunningly beautiful (even in black and white), lyrical modernizations of classic stories. There is a timelessness that is conveyed both internally to the narratives and in the films themselves. Cocteau experimented with form, with special effects, with film technique, and in this respect was avant-garde in his filmmaking, but there is, as noted, an underlying classicism of theme and of form that is almost heightened by such experimentation.

In addition to the films he directed, Cocteau's contribution to cinema includes those films made from his screenplays or based on his literary works. These include Pierre Billon'sRuy Bias(1948), for which Cocteau wrote a screenplay adapted from the Victor Hugo novel;Jean-Pierre Melville's adaptation of Cocteau'sLes Enfants terribles(1950), for which Cocteau wrote the screenplay; Delannoy'sLa Princesse de Clèves(1960), for which Cocteau wrote the screen-play, based on the novel by Madame de Lafayette; andGeorges Franju's adaptation of Cocteau'sThomas l'imposteur(1964).

Quite apart from his films, Cocteau remains a literary and avant-garde figure of some importance. Picasso, not known for his modesty, once referred to Cocteau as "the tail of my comet." Considering the comet to be esteemed worthy of consideration as part of the same artistic universe is already an accomplishment. Cocteau, apparently, was an integral part of that universe.