For a man obsessed with death, the “descent into the underworld” is expectedly one of the major themes depicted into the films of Jean Cocteau. It appeared as early as “Blood of a Poet”, where he is already developing the theme that will be the backbone of “Orpheus”. “Orpheus” is based on the legend of Orpheus and Euridyce and the former’s entry into the underworld to recover his wife from Death itself. As Cocteau stated, it was a legend beyond time and space. Cocteau reworked the story into that of a famous poet, Orpheus, played by Jean Marais, with whom Cocteau had a long relationship. The movie begins with a gathering in the “Poet’s Café”, which is identified as the centre of the universe. Jacques Cegeste, an aspiring, young poet, is killed by two motorbike riders, who are in truth angels of Death. Death herself arrives on the scene shortly afterwards, riding in a car. She “lives locally” under the guise of a princess, who publishes “Nudisme”, a book of poetry that has nothing but blank pages. With Cegeste dying, Orpheus is told to come with the Princess, to take Cegeste to hospital. Instead, they drive to the Princess’ home, accompanied by her angels, where Cegeste is raised from the dead, to serve her. Orpheus returns home to his wife, Euridyce. But Death has fallen in love with Orpheus and visits him repeatedly at night while he is sleeping. She then decides to kill Euridyce, so she can have him, only soon having to appear in front of a tribunal, being charged and convicted for trespassing her authority. As the story progresses, we find that our world-famous poet Orpheus becomes obsessed with nonsensical phrases that are uttered over the radio. “Silence goes faster backward. Three times. The mirrors would do well to reflect further. 38.39.40. Repeat twice.” They are meaningless phrases in our reality, but to Orpheus, they mean more than anything he has ever written and he would trade in any poem he has written for these divine messages. It seems that he alone, a poet, is able to understand their true meaning: instructions to the angels, sent from the beyond to Earth. So what did Cocteau make of the Afterlife? It appears to void of free will. Orders are given, and orders are carried out. The world is black and white. If orders are broken, there is judgment, and punishment. Who is the ultimate commander? Even Death does not seem to know. They all assume it is God, but he seems absent. They just go through the motions, admiring us for we have free will. Cegeste was transformed into an angel, and Cegeste would make his reappearance in “The Testament of Orpheus”. There, Cegeste turns out to be Cocteau’s guardian angel, who materialises, to help him. He shows Cocteau a metamorphosis of an orchid in a death’s mask. Asked how he did this, Cegeste explains that the rite forms part of a ceremony about which he is not allowed to enlarge. But Cegeste is not the only angel: there is Heurtebise, Death’s driver, who had committed suicide by gassing himself, to be raised by Death as well. And what to make of what Heurtebise states: “I give you the secret of secrets. Mirrors are gates through which the dead come and go. All of you, look at your life in a mirror and you see Death at work.” Are these but allegorical expression of a poet? For Cocteau, it was much more than that. Cocteau appears to be one of those people who seem to have benefited from an “occult protection” – not from a group like “The Priory of Sion”, but from “the beyond – the angels”. Cocteau reported that his “awakening” to this Other Realm began in 1910: “the first sound of the bell, which will finish only with my death, was given to me by Diaghilev, one night, on the Place de la Concorde […] As I questioned him on his reserve (I was accustomed to the praises), he stopped, adjusted his monocle and said to me: ‘Astonish me.’ […] This sentence saved me from a brilliant career. I guessed that one does not astonish Diaghilev. From this minute onwards, I decided to die and live again. The work was long and atrocious.” The amateurs of sacred geography and ancient mysteries will appreciate the specific location of this revelation: the foot of the obelisk of Luxor, in front of the Louvre. One of the first outcomes of this awakening was in 1919, when Cocteau published a book on which he was working since 1913: “The Potomak”. It was a long pregnancy, resulting in a disconcerting work that is a mixture of a novel, poetry and autobiographical elements, all of this laced with drawings, which on first sight seem to have little in common with the text. It would Cocteau’s trademark. Asked to explain the bizarre cacophony, he stated this was often the form “imposed” by the “parliamentarians of the unknown” when they dictate a work to the writer. But if the realisation of the Place de la Concorde provoked in Cocteau an awakening (the first step that is required for any initiation), the publication of “The Potomak” corresponded to a true second birth. It would prepare him for a major revelation.
Posted on: Wed, 05 Jun 2013 00:38:58 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015