Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French polymath – poet, playwright, novelist, designer, filmmaker, visual artist, and critic. A central figure in the surrealist, avant-garde, and Dadaist movements, Cocteau profoundly shaped early 20th-century art. Arguably his most ambitious and enduring project is the Orphic Trilogy, a series of three films inspired by the myth of Orpheus. This trilogy includes Le Sang d’un Poète (1932), Orphée (1950), and Le Testament d’Orphée (1960). Taking three decades to complete, these films delve deeply into the essence of art – especially poetry – and its unrelenting influence on Cocteau’s life.
Cocteau was born on July 5th, 1889, in Maisons-Laffitte, Yvelines, near Paris. His father, Georges Cocteau, an amateur artist and lawyer, tragically took his own life when Cocteau was just nine years old. Decades later, Cocteau suggested his father may have been a closeted gay man struggling with his identity. Dismissed from the Lycée Condorcet for poor performance and indifference, Cocteau spent a year in Marseille at 15, where he likely experienced his first sexual encounters with both men and women. By the age of 18, he had already emerged as a budding literary talent.
Cocteau’s work is in many ways autobiographical. His recurring motif of the mirror serves as more than a simple tool for reflection – it refracts his gaze, offering insights into his poetic, rather than literal, identity. Through this lens, Cocteau explores his legacy, seeking an enduring sense of self. To achieve this, he engages with mythical figures like Orpheus and Narcissus, who have long captivated the collective imagination. In each film of his Orphic Trilogy, Cocteau forges unique connections with these archetypes, gradually aligning himself more closely with their identities as the series progresses. Ultimately, Cocteau aspires to the poetic immortality embodied by Orpheus, Narcissus, and mythic figures at large. Perhaps what Cocteau yearned for was not the immortality of a conscious hero as that in the traditional myths, but of an unconscious poet, not confined by any rules.
Cocteau's films were dazzlingly imaginative, pushing the boundaries of cinema with endless creativity, with humanoid horses and angelic imagery. Though closely associated with the Surrealist movement of the late 1920s and early 1930s, he never identified as a Surrealist. Yet, the movement and his relationships with its key figures profoundly influenced his vision. His illustrious circle included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, Igor Stravinsky, Colette, Édith Piaf, and his longtime lover and collaborator, Jean Marais.
Cocteau championed an elegant, ethereal aesthetic, often describing his work as “poetry” – not confined to verse but reflecting a lyrical sensibility grounded in intellectual rigor and dedication. In his groundbreaking debut film, Le Sang d’un Poète (The Blood of a Poet), Jean Cocteau famously declared, “Poets... shed not only the red blood of their hearts but the white blood of their souls.” This first installment of his Orphic Trilogy delves into the artist’s inner turmoil, exploring the interplay between art and dreams, life and the dissolution of identity. The poet, portrayed with haunting depth by Enrique Riveros, must endure a series of symbolic deaths before being reborn in a state closer to his true self. Though divided into four distinct parts, the film's events are framed as occurring in the fleeting moment when a collapsing chimney strikes the ground.
Le Sang d’un Poète stood out not only for its innovative use of filmmaking techniques – such as editing, special effects, and design – but also for its bold exploration of themes considered “taboo” at the time, including homosexuality, the afterlife, and suicidal thoughts. Unable to fully express himself through poetry or theater, Cocteau turned to film as a powerful visual medium to convey his vision.
The heart of Cocteau’s Orphic Trilogy, Orphée came eighteen years later. A lyrical narrative that continues exploring myth and the supernatural, Orphée follows a famous poet (Jean Marais), rejected by his peers on the Left Bank, as he grapples with his feelings for his wife, Eurydice (Marie Déa), and a mysterious princess (Maria Casarès). Using Cocteau’s iconic mirrored portal, the poet journeys from the living world to the realm of the dead in search of inspiration. Featuring these stunning mirror shots, Orphée showcases some of Cocteau’s finest visual effects.
Before creating his three Orphic films, Cocteau had already explored the Orpheus myth. In 1925, he wrote Orphée, a play that premiered at Paris’s Théâtre des Arts in 1926. While there are some similarities, his film Orphée is not a direct adaptation of this earlier work. Cocteau’s reimagining of the Greek tragedy is a deeply personal and revealing work, with his voice subtly echoing throughout the film. He often introduced his films through voiceover, allowing his presence to linger in the background, guiding the narrative. As he says at the start of the film, “Interpret it as you wish.” However, before forming your own interpretation, it’s worth reflecting on what he later wrote: “…through a wealth of detail similar to that which we find in dreams, (Orpheus) summarises my way of living and my conception of life.”
In his final film, Le Testament d’Orphée, Cocteau himself stars as an 18th-century poet journeying through time in search of divine wisdom. Lost in a mystical wilderness, he encounters ghosts and goddesses from the past who precipitate his death and eventual resurrection. The film features a diverse cast, including Pablo Picasso, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Jean Marais, and Yul Brynner. It marks the conclusion of the journey Cocteau began in Le Sang d'un Poète, which delved into the complex relationship between the creator and his creations. Above all, his art is a reflection of the self, and the totality of his œuvre is incredibly powerful. Cocteau himself can be read in his work as much as his work can be read for itself. Characterised by many tragedies, his life led him to a fantastical dreamscape from which much of his work would be drawn from.
In today’s postmodern world, we often mock artists who seek to evoke romantic ideals or create beauty for its own sake, favouring sarcasm, irony, and cynicism instead. Despite this, Jean Cocteau’s work remains a rich fantasy for those who still yearn for a form of art that celebrates ethereal, adventurous grandeur.