Orpheus (1950)
Starring: Jean Marais, François Périer, Maria Casares, Marie Déa
Then modern 1950 Paris is the backdrop of this retelling of the
ancient Greek mythological of Orpheus and Eurydice in a motion picture imagined
by one of more peculiar and creative artistic minds of French cinema and the art
world. Jean Cocteau’s Orpheus opens by inviting audiences to come to
their own individual conclusion of the film’s meaning as viewers are directed on
a journey rich in mysterious architypes clouded in a story that makes one
question the idea of narrative and visuals. A rather simple produced creation, its
product manifests how a filmmaker can dig into a viewer’s mind and soul leaving
them yearning for more while not quite being able to describe what they just observed.
This is an example of an artist doing more with less.
Orpheus is a French drama about a man’s journey to
the underworld to save his wife, only to fall in love with Death. A famed
artist of Paris’s poet scene, Orpheus (Jean Marais) becomes obsessed with mysterious
workings of a Death like female figure, known as The Princess (Maria Casares).
He is witness to her delivering a rising young poet to the underworld and soon
after becomes obsessed in discovering cryptic poetry playing on a radio that
distracts him from everything surrounding him. Through his obsession Orpheus becomes
torn between love, his fascination of art, and death in circumstances involving
his wife Eurydice (Marie Déa), the mysterious Princess, and her inscrutable
chauffeur, Heurtebise (François Périer). The death of Eurydice leads Orpheus on
a journey to the underworld striking a deal for her return under stipulation that
he never looks upon his wife again, which he fails to. Through it all Orpheus finds
himself falling in love with the Princess, while Heurtebise falls in love with Eurydice.
Ultimately it is the two Death figures, the princess and Heurtebise, who make
the final sacrifice, allowing Orpheus and Eurydice to return with no memory of
their supernatural experiences and a renewed love of each other, as the two shadowy
figures move on.
This small motion picture is a revolution of simple special
effects, humble camera trick, and clever editing in a period when movies tended
to stand out by being monumental or grand. The narrative utilizes the motion
picture camera and editing techniques as an artform rather than a simple tool
of recording stories, manifesting a product of a philosophical creative mind at
work unlike most contemporary filmmakers. On the surface to a general film
viewer the picture may be odd, simple in term of its effects, and a bit askew
in ats attempt to share a narrative, but if one allows the movie to take hold
of their attention it becomes far more. It is a film that pulls you in without
delivering everything to the viewer, ultimately leaving one feeling they lived
through something significant they cannot quite put their finger on, a feeling
that there was something more profound they discovered only the surface of
within the picture and themselves.
Jean Cocteau, a poet, playwright, actor, painter, artist,
and sometime filmmaker, best known for his haunting beautiful Belle et la Béte
(!946) returns to the medium inspired by the mythology of the ancient Greek
poet Orpheus. More specifically Cocteau focuses on the character’s poetic
nature and relationship with love and death in the story of Orpheus and
Eurydice. He found it curious as to how a artist is measured in death over that
when he is living as well as a vision of spirituality in the afterlife focused
on the underworld. Making the story contemporary in setting further delivers
the character of Orpheus closer in parallel to that of Cocteau’s mind as he
looked to adapt the idea for his fifth foray into motion pictures.
Being an avant-garde artist with such an esoteric film
concept, major French film producers were not willing to financially back the
project leaving Cocteau to find other means to produce the picture. Cocteau
raised funds on his own for the project and worked out agreements with his cast
to pay their salaries after the film was released when he would be able to
afford it. Existing locations would be used for sets father cutting production
costs with the most elaborate filming location being the remains of a bombed
military academy to representing the transitional world between the living and
the underworld.
In Cocteau’s mind everything in the picture must be been
done in camera to make it as effective and believable as possible. His creative
mind delivered a surreal aspect to the picture which led him to effectively using
takes filmed in reverse to create unworldly special effects shots in many
areas. Rear project allowed use of split environmental effects between
characters within a frame to manifest the difference between Orpheus as a
living being and the characters from the underworld as they pass between the
living and the dead. For the Lewis Carrol-like transportation device of a
mirror being the doorway between worlds creative stage doubling, camera trickery,
and even the use of liquid mercury for its reflective nature were utilized to
create properties that deliver a dreamlike effect of passing through a reflective
plane that casual movie goers would have been entranced by. All this was done
on a slim budget, but to the upmost artistic style envisioned by the creative Cocteau.
Starring as Orpheus is Jean Marais, the very close friend of
Cocteau who was considered the director’s muse, as well as his former lover.
One may best remember him as the Beast in Cocteau’s 1946 fantasy classic, hear
delivering a entrancing titular character. His performance as the successful,
but ever troubled famous poet provides a performance of a character that is
torn between his heart and his mind, his art and his legacy, his wife and
Death. María Casares is the mysterious and beautiful Princess, a Death figure
that loves Orpheus as an artist so much so that she fetches him to the
underworld with the idea of gifting him an immortal heritage among the living
before returning him.
François Périer plays the Princess’ chauffeur, Heurtebise, a
sort of Death in training character that comes to fall for Eurydice, making an
equal sacrifice to his master. Marie Déa portrays Eurydice, the loving, yet
neglected wife of Orpheus, a real pawn in all the story for which the audience
feels for. Her role is the simplest and is somewhat small, but should be
honored as the most vital as it is her love for Orpheus and his love for her
that makes everything happen and a worthwhile journey in the end.
Orpheus found favor among many cinema lovers of the
day and even more in the years that followed. Successful runs in the film
festival circuits spread the creativity of the filmmaker and his work as he
helped introduce the avant-garde style of filmmaking in France and beyond with
his productions. Ten years later Cocteau would delve back into his curiosity of
the Orpheus myology with Testament of Orpheus (1960) with himself
starring as an 18th century poet. Along with Orpheus and
Cocteau’s first feature The Blood of a Poet (1930) the trio of motion
pictures formed what came to be called Cocteau’s Orphic Trilogy.
Attempting to encapsulate what Orpheus and its
possible meanings is a trying effort in words, as it is a motion picture that
needs to be experiences on its own by a viewer to interoperate on his/her own
as Cocteau so states at the opening of the film. This simple description of the
feature is only an attempt to capture but a morsel of the production under the
eyes of a single viewepoint, but must be left to the eyes of the beholder.
The picture is difficult to understand with only a casual view, and that is the point of the artistry of Jean Cocteau from the beginning, for art is art in his mind. I can only liken the experience for more contemporary viewers to that of a Stanley Kubrick film where the filmmaker delivers a story, but leaves audiences partially puzzled with a feeling that they experienced something more profound that they are drawn to, but cannot quite comprehend. This may make the film polarizing, but does inspire those that admire film as an artform.
.jpg)
Comments
Post a Comment