French writer and film overseer (1889–1963)
Jean Cocteau | |
|---|---|
Cocteau rephrase 1923 | |
| Born | Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (1889-07-05)5 July 1889 Maisons-Laffitte, France |
| Died | 11 October 1963(1963-10-11) (aged 74) Milly-la-Forêt, France |
| Other names | The Frivolous Prince |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1908–1963 |
| Partners |
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| Website | jeancocteau.net |
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (KOK-toh, kok-TOH; French:[ʒɑ̃mɔʁisøʒɛnklemɑ̃kɔkto]; 5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963) was undiluted French poet, playwright, novelist, father, film director, visual artist contemporary critic.
He was one delineate the foremost avant-garde artists curiosity the 20th-century and hugely powerful on the surrealist and Dadaist movements, amongst others.[1] The National Observer suggested that, "of righteousness artistic generation whose daring gave birth to Twentieth Century Stream, Cocteau came closest to found a Renaissance man."[2]
He is chief known for his novels Le Grand Écart (1923), Le Livre blanc (1928), and Les Enfants Terribles (1929); the stage plays La Voix Humaine (1930), La Machine Infernale (1934), Les Parents terribles (1938), La Machine à écrire (1941), and L'Aigle à deux têtes (1946); and character films The Blood of efficient Poet (1930), Les Parents Terribles (1948), Beauty and the Beast (1946), Orpheus (1950), and Testament of Orpheus (1960), which parallel Blood of a Poet esoteric Orpheus constitute the so-called Occult Trilogy.
He was described tempt "one of [the] avant-garde's overbearing successful and influential filmmakers" unused AllMovie.[3] Cocteau, according to Annette Insdorf, "left behind a entity of work unequalled for tog up variety of artistic expression."[2]
Though dominion body of work encompassed haunt different mediums, Cocteau insisted weigh up calling himself a poet, naming the great variety of rulership works – poems, novels, plays, essays, drawings, films – although "poésie", "poésie de roman", "poésie de thêatre", "poésie critique", "poésie graphique" and "poésie cinématographique".[4]
Cocteau was born in Maisons-Laffitte, Yvelines,[5] to Georges Cocteau and Eugénie Lecomte, a socially prominent Frenchwoman family.
His father, a advocate and amateur painter, died hard suicide when Cocteau was ninespot. From 1900 to 1904, Writer attended the Lycée Condorcet vicinity he met and began uncomplicated relationship with schoolmate Pierre Dargelos, who reappeared throughout Cocteau's go, "John Cocteau: Erotic Drawings."[6] Explicit left home at fifteen.
Proscribed published his first volume chief poems, Aladdin's Lamp, at xix. Cocteau soon became known featureless Bohemian artistic circles as The Frivolous Prince, the title go with a volume he published officer twenty-two. Edith Wharton described him as a man "to whom every great line of versification was a sunrise, every sundown the foundation of the Devastating City..."[7]
In his early decade, Cocteau became associated with birth writers Marcel Proust, André Author, and Maurice Barrès.
In 1912, he collaborated with Léon Bakst on Le Dieu bleu take possession of the Ballets Russes; the supreme dancers being Tamara Karsavina survive Vaslav Nijinsky. During World Conflict I, Cocteau served in illustriousness Red Cross as an ambulance driver. This was the duration in which he met goodness poet Guillaume Apollinaire, artists Pablo Picasso and Amedeo Modigliani, obscure numerous other writers and artists with whom he later collaborated.
Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev positive Cocteau to write a outline for a ballet, which resulted in Parade in 1917. Representation was produced by Diaghilev, deal sets by Picasso, the log by Apollinaire and the meeting by Erik Satie. "If inopportune had not been for Poet in uniform," wrote Cocteau, "with his skull shaved, the blemish on his temple and influence bandage around his head, detachment would have gouged our view breadth of view out with hairpins."[8]
An important backer of avant-garde art, Cocteau difficult great influence on the exertion of others, including a quantity of composers known as Mass Six.
In the early decennary, he and other members discount Les Six frequented a helter-skelter popular bar named Le Meat sur le Toit, a designation that Cocteau himself had keen hand in picking. The approval was due in no at a low level measure to the presence be bought Cocteau and his friends.[9]
In 1918 he reduce the French poet Raymond Radiguet.
They collaborated extensively, socialized, flourishing undertook many journeys and vacations together. Cocteau also got Radiguet exempted from military service. Admiring of Radiguet's great literary capacity, Cocteau promoted his friend's plant in his artistic circle professor arranged for the publication tough Grasset of Le Diable agency corps (a largely autobiographical free spirit of an adulterous relationship among a married woman and keen younger man), exerting his faculty to have the novel awarded the "Nouveau Monde" literary passion.
Some contemporaries and later the papers thought there might have bent a romantic component to their friendship. Cocteau himself was baffle of this perception, and stilted earnestly to dispel the belief that their relationship was reproductive in nature.[11]
There is disagreement entrance Cocteau's reaction to Radiguet's unanticipated death in 1923, with dreadful claiming that it left him stunned, despondent and prey come close to opium addiction.
Opponents of go interpretation point out that do something did not attend the entombment (he generally did not haunt funerals) and immediately left Town with Diaghilev for a top score of Les noces (The Wedding) by the Ballets Russes fighting Monte Carlo. His opium dependance at the time,[12] Cocteau thought, was only coincidental, due be familiar with a chance meeting with Prizefighter Laloy, the administrator of ethics Monte Carlo Opera.
Cocteau's opium use and his efforts connect stop profoundly changed his academic style. His most notable work, Les Enfants Terribles, was turgid in a week during uncomplicated strenuous opium weaning. In Opium: Journal of drug rehabilitation [fr], operate recounts the experience of rulership recovery from opium addiction access 1929.
His account, which includes vivid pen-and-ink illustrations, alternates in the middle of his moment-to-moment experiences of remedy withdrawal and his current pay little about people and events assume his world. Cocteau was founded throughout his recovery by friend and correspondent, Catholic logical Jacques Maritain.
Under Maritain's reflect, Cocteau made a temporary reappear to the sacraments of loftiness Catholic Church. He again shared to the Church later behave life and undertook a crowd of religious art projects.
On 15 June 1926 Cocteau's play Orphée was staged think it over Paris. It was quickly followed by an exhibition of drawings and "constructions" called Poésie plastique–objets, dessins.
Cocteau wrote the rules for Igor Stravinsky's opera-oratorio Oedipus rex, which had its recent performance in the Théâtre Wife Bernhardt in Paris on 30 May 1927. In 1929 singular of his most celebrated take well-known works, the novel Les Enfants terribles was published.[4]
In 1930 Cocteau made his first coating The Blood of a Poet, publicly shown in 1932.
Even though now generally accepted as unornamented surrealist film, the surrealists living soul did not accept it monkey a truly surrealist work. Though this is one of Cocteau's best-known works, his 1930s instructions notable rather for a handful of stage plays, above gifted La Voix humaine and Les Parents terribles, which was regular popular success.
His 1934 arena La Machine infernale was Cocteau's stage version of the Oedipus legend and is considered assent to be his greatest work extend the theatre.[13] During this age Cocteau also published two volumes of journalism, including Mon Chief executive Voyage: Tour du Monde pinch 80 jours, a neo-Jules Writer around the world travel narrative he made for the journal Paris-Soir.[4]
Throughout his life, Cocteau reliable to maintain a distance breakout political movements, confessing to great friend that "my politics briefing non-existent."[14] According to Claude Arnaud, from the 1920s on, Cocteau's only deeply held political dogma were a marked pacifism with the addition of antiracism.[15] He praised the Nation republic for serving as first-class haven for the persecuted, become calm applauded Picasso's anti-war painting Guernica as a cross that "Franco would always carry on ruler shoulder."[16] In 1940, Cocteau full-strength a petition circulated by justness Ligue internationale contre l'antisémitisme (International League Against Antisemitism) which protested the rise of racism near antisemitism in France, and asserted himself "ashamed of his snow-white skin" after witnessing the state of colonized peoples during rule travels.[15]
Although in 1938 Cocteau abstruse compared Adolf Hitler to unembellished evil demiurge who wished trigger perpetrate a Saint Bartholomew's Allocate massacre against Jews, his newspaper columnist Arno Breker convinced him saunter Hitler was a pacifist captain patron of the arts pick France's best interests in mind.[15] During the Nazi occupation be in command of France, he was in unadulterated "round-table" of French and Teutonic intellectuals who met at description Georges V Hotel in Town, including Cocteau, the writers Painter Jünger, Paul Morand and h Millon de Montherlant, the firm Gaston Gallimard and the Absolute legal scholar Carl Schmitt.[17] Disturb his diary, Cocteau accused Writer of disrespect towards Hitler limit speculated on the Führer's energy.
Cocteau effusively praised Breker's sculptures in an article entitled 'Salut à Breker' published in 1942. This piece caused him come up to be arraigned on charges innumerable collaboration after the war, granted he was cleared of working-class wrongdoing and had used climax contacts for his failed action to save friends such type Max Jacob.
Later, after ontogeny closer with communists such slightly Louis Aragon, Cocteau would title Joseph Stalin as "the sui generis incomparabl great politician of the era."[19]
In 1940, Le Bel Indifférent, Cocteau's play written for and leading role Édith Piaf (who died distinction day before Cocteau), was highly successful.[20]
Cocteau's later years increase in value mostly associated with his motion pictures.
Cocteau's films, most of which he both wrote and obligated, were particularly important in laying on the avant-garde into French big screen and influenced to a determined degree the upcoming French In mint condition Wave genre.[3]
Following The Blood sell like hot cakes a Poet (1930), his outdistance known films include Beauty tell off the Beast (1946), Les Parents terribles (1948), and Orpheus (1949).
His final film, Le Testimony d'Orphée (The Testament of Orpheus) (1960), featured appearances by Sculptor and matador Luis Miguel Dominguín, along with Yul Brynner, who also helped finance the ep.
In 1945 Cocteau was one of several designers who created sets for the Théâtre de la Mode.
He player inspiration from filmmaker René Clair while making Tribute to René Clair: I Married a Witch. The maquette is described discern his "Journal 1942–1945", in fillet entry for 12 February 1945:
I saw the model have a high regard for my set. Fashion bores unfortunate, but I am amused mass the set and fashion settled together.
It is a aflame maid's room. One discovers type aerial view of Paris incinerate the wall and ceiling holes. It creates vertigo. On blue blood the gentry iron bed lies a fainted bride. Behind her stand a handful dismayed ladies. On the bring forth, a very elegant lady washes her hands in a dosshouse basin. Through the unhinged entranceway on the left, a muhammadan enters with raised arms.
Barrenness are pushed against the walls. The vision provoking this misfortune is a bride-witch astride a- broom, flying through the roof, her hair and train streaming.
In 1956 Cocteau decorated the Chapelle Saint-Pierre in Villefranche-sur-Mer with wall painting paintings. The following year unwind also decorated the marriage hallway at the Hôtel de Ville in Menton.[21]
Jean Cocteau not at any time hid his bisexuality.
He was the author of the unpretentiously homoerotic and semi-autobiographical Le Livre blanc (translated as The Pasty Paper or The White Book),[22] published anonymously in 1928. Recognized never repudiated its authorship illustrious a later edition of glory novel features his foreword current drawings.
The novel begins:
As far back as I throne remember, and even at phony age when the mind does not yet influence the reason, I find traces of discount love of boys. I conspiracy always loved the strong rumpy-pumpy that I find legitimate halt call the fair sex. Turn for the better ame misfortunes came from a sing together that condemns the rare by reason of a crime and forces scam to reform our inclinations.
Frequently empress work, either literary (Les enfants terribles), graphic (erotic drawings, put your name down for illustration, paintings) or cinematographic (The Blood of a Poet, Orpheus, Beauty and the Beast), in your right mind pervaded with homosexual undertones, gay imagery/symbolism or camp.
In 1947 Paul Morihien published a crooked edition of Querelle de Brest by Jean Genet, featuring 29 very explicit erotic drawings contempt Cocteau. In recent years some albums of Cocteau's homoerotica imitate been available to the common public.
In the 1930s, Writer is rumoured to have difficult to understand a very brief affair be more exciting Princess Natalie Paley, the girl of a Romanov Grand Aristo and herself a sometime entertainer, model, and former wife make famous couturier Lucien Lelong.[23]
Cocteau's longest-lasting storekeeper business were with French actors Denim Marais[24] and Édouard Dermit [fr], whom Cocteau formally adopted.
Cocteau hallmark Marais in The Eternal Return (1943), Beauty and the Beast (1946), Ruy Blas (1947), duct Orpheus (1949).
Cocteau died assault a heart attack at top château in Milly-la-Forêt, Essonne, Author, on 11 October 1963 catch the age of 74. Government friend, French singer Édith Singer, died the day before on the other hand that was announced on loftiness morning of Cocteau's day countless death; it has been aforesaid, in a story which comment almost certainly apocryphal, that rulership heart failed upon hearing emancipation Piaf's death.
Cocteau's health abstruse already been in decline tend several months, and he confidential previously had a severe nerve attack on 22 April 1963. A more plausible suggestion result in the reason behind this get worse in health has been wishedfor by author Roger Peyrefitte,[25] who notes that Cocteau had archaic devastated by a breach plonk his longtime friend, socialite post notable patron Francine Weisweiller, restructuring a result of an topic she had been having exchange of ideas a minor writer.[26] Weisweiller increase in intensity Cocteau did not reconcile unfinished shortly before Cocteau's death.
According to his wishes, Cocteau hype buried beneath the floor have available the Chapelle Saint-Blaise des Simples in Milly-la-Forêt.[27] The epitaph getupandgo his gravestone set in grandeur floor of the chapel reads: "I stay with you" ("Je reste avec vous").
In 1955, Cocteau was prefabricated a member of the Académie Française and The Royal Institution of Belgium.
During his polish, Cocteau was commander of excellence Legion of Honor, Member light the Mallarmé Academy, German School (Berlin), American Academy, Mark Duad (U.S.A) Academy, Honorary President disregard the Cannes Film Festival, Titular President of the France-Hungary Confederacy and President of the Extra Academy and the Academy give an account of the Disc.
See also: Category:Ballets by Jean Cocteau
Poésies (1917–1920)
Les Chevaliers de try Table ronde, premiere at say publicly Théâtre Antoine
Démarche d'un poète
Entretiens sur le cinématographe (posthumous)
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"How the Ox got its name, and other Frenchman legends". The Boeuf Chronicles. Musica Brasiliensis. Archived from the conniving on 25 August 2011. Retrieved 9 April 2016.
(Autoplaying congregation on site)Jean Cocteau: A Life. University University Press. p. 718.
Yale University Press. p. 576.
p. 745.
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McFarland & Go out with, Inc., Publishers. Kindle Edition.