PDF: The Cinema of Jean Cocteau: Essays on his Films and their ...

approaches to film have been established
in several new groups, including
the Zentropa production company,
Stormtroopers101, and Open Film
Town projects.
A key issue in this book is the conflict
between traditions <strong>of</strong> film artistry and
the populist consciousness <strong>of</strong> corporate
and government sectors that rationalise
the increasingly commercial and
cosmopolitan agenda <strong>of</strong> minor cinemas.
A related and equally important
issue concerns the effects <strong>of</strong> globalization
on national cinemas. <strong>The</strong> Danish
Directors’ theoretical achievement lies
in its confrontation <strong>of</strong> academic
debates over issues such as these with
a dialogue provided by practitioners <strong>of</strong>
Danish cinema. <strong>The</strong> editors’ discriminating
approach to the genre <strong>of</strong> director
interview books is especially welcome,
given the paucity <strong>of</strong> material
about Danish cinema in English. <strong>The</strong>ir
book is certain to animate academic
and cinephile discussions alike.
University <strong>of</strong> East Anglia
THE CINEMA OF JEAN COCTEAU:
ESSAYS ON HIS FILMS AND THEIR
COCTELIAN SOURCES
Edited by C.D.E. Tolton
New York, Ottawa and Toronto:
Legas, 1999, 200pp.
Reviewed by Charles O’Brien
<strong>The</strong> essays collected in <strong>The</strong> <strong>Cinema</strong> <strong>of</strong>
<strong>Jean</strong> <strong>Cocteau</strong> <strong>of</strong>fer a timely survey <strong>of</strong> key
moments in <strong>Cocteau</strong>’s remarkable film
career. <strong>Cocteau</strong>’s canonical status
evolved from his engagement in film
culture over a period <strong>of</strong> three full
decades as a director, a writer, and also
as a mentor for young filmmakers. Yet
since the mid-1970s, film critics and
historians have devoted relatively little
attention to <strong>Cocteau</strong>. During a period
when the focus <strong>of</strong> film studies had
begun to shift away from aes thetic and
biographical criticism and toward
what ultimately would become today’s
diverse forms <strong>of</strong> contextual analysis,
<strong>Cocteau</strong>, the prototypical auteur, fell
by the discipline’s wayside.
Even for historians <strong>of</strong> French cinema,
to which <strong>Cocteau</strong> contributed sig -
nificantly during the 1940s and 1950s,
he figures as an anomaly, the films
taken as indicative <strong>of</strong> little more than
<strong>Cocteau</strong>’s own tireless effort to make
a mark in the art world. Although
recognized as contributions to film
history, <strong>Cocteau</strong>’s films, like <strong>Cocteau</strong>
himself, seem to exist outside that history,
significant as milestones within
an artistic biography driven by its own
internal dynamic.
<strong>Cocteau</strong> has always held a marginal
position within film studies. As is suggested
by the bibliography in <strong>The</strong> <strong>Cinema</strong>
<strong>of</strong> <strong>Jean</strong> <strong>Cocteau</strong>, even in the 1960s and
early 1970s, during a wave <strong>of</strong> anglophone
interest in <strong>Cocteau</strong>, experimental
CJFS • RCEC 125

filmmakers and literary critics as much
as film critics were drawn to <strong>Cocteau</strong>’s
films. As Cam Tolton observes in his
introduction to <strong>The</strong> <strong>Cinema</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Jean</strong>
<strong>Cocteau</strong>, <strong>Cocteau</strong> ranks among the
most literary <strong>of</strong> filmmakers, and still
today his films remain accessible largely
through his own well-crafted self-image
as romantic poet.
This image had taken form some two
decades before <strong>Cocteau</strong> directed his
first film, Le sang d’un poète (1930/1932)
at age forty-one. By then, after nearly
twenty-five years <strong>of</strong> published writing,
along with diverse drawings, theatrical
productions, libretti, stage designs,
and murals, including collaborations
with artists such as Diaghilev, Picasso,
Satie and others, <strong>Cocteau</strong> was an
international celebrity. From the start,
<strong>Cocteau</strong>’s work in film would amount
to only one facet <strong>of</strong> a lifelong commitment
to “poetic” expression.
<strong>The</strong> critical essays collected in <strong>The</strong>
<strong>Cinema</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Jean</strong> <strong>Cocteau</strong> deal with eight
films written and/or directed by
<strong>Cocteau</strong>, relating them to his life and
to his work in other media, especially
theatre. Written by students in
Tolton’s 1997 graduate seminar at the
University <strong>of</strong> Toronto, the analyses in
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Cinema</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Jean</strong> <strong>Cocteau</strong> amount, for
the most part, to applications <strong>of</strong> various
critical methods to the study <strong>of</strong>
individual films. Updated versions <strong>of</strong>
traditional critical approaches include
Tanya Angers’ discussion <strong>of</strong> Coctelian
126 Volume 10 No. 1
notions <strong>of</strong> poetic creation in Le sang
d’un poète and Mima Vulovic’s study <strong>of</strong>
<strong>Cocteau</strong>’s revision <strong>of</strong> the orphic myth
in Orphée (1950). Other pieces apply
more contemporary critical approaches
to <strong>Cocteau</strong>’s films and plays.
Examples include Iain A. Hill’s study <strong>of</strong>
the “masochistic aesthetic” <strong>of</strong> Le testa ment
d’Orphée (1960), Rebecca Conolly’s
feminist critique <strong>of</strong> Orphée, Tamara
El-Hoss’ narratological analysis <strong>of</strong> the
play Les parents terribles (1938), Jacob
Kruger’s “Lacanian approach” to the
autobiographical aspects <strong>of</strong> the film
version <strong>of</strong> Les parents terribles (1948), and
Dario Del Degan’s survey <strong>of</strong> Sartrian
themes in La belle et la bête(1946).
<strong>The</strong> individual pieces are especially
rewarding when attuned to dimensions
<strong>of</strong> <strong>Cocteau</strong>’s films that prove
resistant to the methods brought to
bear on them, as in Roxanne Chee’s
psychoanalytic analysis <strong>of</strong> Les enfants
terribles (1950, <strong>Jean</strong>-Pierre Melville),
based on a <strong>Cocteau</strong> novel. In this case,
the critical project might be said to
become self-critical, with the strangeness
<strong>of</strong> the films’ images and sounds
revealing the limits <strong>of</strong> a pre-made conceptual
framework. Rather than confirm
familiar theories, <strong>Cocteau</strong>’s films
may in fact push us to think about film
in new ways.
But the most impressive feature <strong>of</strong>
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Cinema</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Jean</strong> <strong>Cocteau</strong> is perhaps
what the ensemble <strong>of</strong> pieces suggests
regarding the potential for further

work on <strong>Cocteau</strong>’s cinema. Here
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Cinema</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Jean</strong> <strong>Cocteau</strong> would have
benefited from the inclusion <strong>of</strong> a
filmography, which would clarify the
chronology as well as the extent <strong>of</strong> the
contributions <strong>of</strong> long-time collaborators
such as composer Georges Auric
and set designer Christian Bérard.
In reading this collection, one is
reminded <strong>of</strong> the strength <strong>of</strong> the artistic
achievement <strong>of</strong> films such as Le sang
d’un poète, La belle et la bête, and Orphée.
Images <strong>of</strong> human figures passing
through mirrors, portraits that come
to life, and fantastic disappearances
and human/animal transformations à
la Georges Méliès remain as impressive
as ever. Regardless <strong>of</strong> <strong>Cocteau</strong>’s
literary reputation, or his feigned
naïveté concerning film technique,
<strong>Cocteau</strong>’s most enduring achievements
may well have been in film, as
Tolton proposes. At the same time,
however, the strength <strong>of</strong> the artistic
accomplishment underscores how little
is known about certain aspects <strong>of</strong>
<strong>Cocteau</strong>’s film career, notwithstanding
his considerable fame and notoriety.
For instance, one would like to know
more about <strong>Cocteau</strong>’s work in cinema
during the 1940s, when after a ten-year
hiatus from filmmaking, he began
writing scripts for Bresson and others,
creating roles for his companion,
the actor and soon-to-be film star
<strong>Jean</strong> Marais. Relevant here are
Sara Maclean’s piece on <strong>Cocteau</strong>’s
“modernized” adaptation <strong>of</strong> Tristan et
Iseult in L’éternel retour (1943, <strong>Jean</strong>
Dellanoy), and Andrea Scott’s analysis
<strong>of</strong> structural differences between
<strong>Cocteau</strong>’s play L’aigle à deux têtes (1943)
and his filmic adaptation <strong>of</strong> the same
title (1947), which he also directed.
Both pieces raise issues concerning
<strong>Cocteau</strong>’s contributions to occupation-era
currents in film modernism
that merit further study.
Additional topics for further inquiry
include <strong>Cocteau</strong>’s international pr<strong>of</strong>ile
during the first decade after the war,
when he was involved in countless
film-related projects. A beginning can
be found in Wade Lynch’s piece on
Broadway and <strong>of</strong>f-Broadway productions
<strong>of</strong> the play L’aigle à deux têtes. Still,
questions remain regarding <strong>Cocteau</strong>’s
centrality within the international
avant-garde. Appropriate in light <strong>of</strong>
a student-oriented project such as
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Cinema</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Jean</strong> <strong>Cocteau</strong> might be an
inquiry into the circumstances <strong>of</strong> his
role during the 1950s as a mentor for
young filmmakers, from <strong>Jean</strong>-Luc
Godard to Kenneth Anger, Claude
Jutra, and many others (“He helped
everyone,” according to Truffaut).
Marginal to the cinema’s mainstream—and
to film studies’ mainstream—<strong>Cocteau</strong>
nonetheless functioned
as the hub <strong>of</strong> the international
avant-garde film culture that his lifetime
<strong>of</strong> poetic commitment helped to
bring forth.
Carleton University
CJFS • RCEC 127