Cocteau's Orphee

[poliphilo]

I'm sick of CGI; give me good old handmade special effects.

There's more magic in a single frame of this movie than in the whole Potter franchise thus far.

Love the talking Rolls Royce. So that's where they got the idea for Knight Rider!

L'oiseau chante avec ses doights.

What is it with me and dead girls? The last movie female I fell in love with was Moaning Myrtle. Now I'm in love with Maria Casares.

Cocteau may have been gay, but surely he was in love with Maria too?

Me, him, the camera: we all love Maria Casares.

Comments

[sovay]

I love Heurtebise. I need to see this film again.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I hadn't seen it for nearly twenty years- and found it more exciting and magical than ever before.

[ex-kharin447.livejournal.com]

She is the ultimate gay icon...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Ain't she just!

All that righteous anger. *shudders*

[currawong.livejournal.com]

Hugely pretentious,rather silly in that uniquely French, arty way ...but very beautiful and not a single explosion or car-chase. I'd love to show it to the director of "Rambo3" or "Death Wish 12", if only to see the looks of total bewilderment on their faces at being confronted with a movie that aspires to visual poetry.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Silly, yes; but I think he knew when he was being silly. All that hide and seek stuff at the end. I love it that the world of the film is big enough to accomodate both high tragedy and farce.

It's a cliche to say they don't make 'em like that any more; but they don't.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

One of mine too.

There can be few movies with so many iconic moments and images.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's right. It is authentically dreamlike. It has the disjunctions, the oddity, the strangeness, the downright absurdity of real dreaming.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

And the gloves. Don't forget the gloves.

Les miroirs feraient bien de réfléchir d'avantage. (Trois fois).

And Juliette Greco: don't you love Greco just a little bit, too? None of us seems to love Orphée himself very much, though...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've loved Juliette Greco ever since my father brought one of her records home c. 1960.

It was her recording of Pirate Jenny that turned me onto Brecht/Weill.

I'm not sure whether Cocteau intends us to love Orphee or not. Obviously he loved Jean Marais- and saw something in him that the rest of us don't. It's a singularly charmless performance.

But Marais charmlessness works within the context of the movie. This is the artist as self-obsessed heel. And Marais has enough physical presence to ensure that we keep on watching him.