This article is about a film. For the Gluck opera Orphée, see Orfeo ed Euridice.
Orpheus
File:Orpheeposterfrench.jpg
Directed by Jean Cocteau
Produced by André Paulvé
Written by Jean Cocteau
Starring Jean Marais
François Périer
María Casares
Marie Déa
Music by Georges Auric
Cinematography Nicolas Hayer
Editing by Jacqueline Sadoul
Distributed by DisCina
Release date(s)
  • 29 September 1950 (1950-09-29) (France)

  • November 29, 1950 (1950-11-29) (US)
Running time 95 min
Country ‹See Tfd› France
Language French

Orpheus (French: Orphée) is a 1950 French film directed by Jean Cocteau and starring Jean Marais. This film is the central part of Cocteau's Orphic Trilogy, which consists of The Blood of a Poet (1930), Orpheus (1950) and Testament of Orpheus (1960). The trilogy has been released as a DVD boxed set by The Criterion Collection.

Contents

Plot [link]

Set in contemporary Paris, the movie is a variation of the classic Greek myth of Orpheus. At the Café des Poètes, a brawl is staged by acolytes of the Princess (Casares) and the young poet Cègeste (Edouard Dermithe), a rival of Orpheus, is killed. Cègeste's body is taken to the Princess's car by her associates, and Orpheus (Marais) is asked to accompany them as a witness. They drive to a chateau (the landscape through the car windows are presented in negative) accompanied by abstract poetry on the radio. This takes the form of seemingly meaningless messages, like those broadcast to the French Resistance from London during the Occupation.

Orpheus becomes obsessed with Death (the Princess). Heurtebise (Périer), her chauffeur, entertains analogous unrequited love for Orpheus's wife Eurydice (Marie Déa). They fall in love. Eurydice is killed by the Princess's henchmen and Orpheus goes after her into the Underworld. Although they have become dangerously entangled, the Princess sends Orpheus back out of the Underworld, to carry on his life with Eurydice, but he cannot look at her or she will die. They believe it to have been a dream, Eurydice is revealed to be alive, and expecting a child.

Main cast [link]

Themes [link]

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Throughout Orpheus, Cocteau uses very simple special effects and trick shots to show his characters passing into the world of death and back to life: They do so by stepping through mirrors, or else the film is reversed.

Cocteau adds many elements from the culture of his time. For example, the messengers of the Princess of Death are grim, leather-clad motorcyclists. The underworld is represented by buildings in France which remained in ruins after World War II, and Orpheus's trial in the underworld is presented in the manner of an inquest held by officials of the German occupation attempting to discover members of the French resistance. At the very end of the film, the Princess and Heurtebise are prisoners, brought forward to face the tribunal, ominously elevated on a pedestal above them.

Most notably, the element of the myth in which Orpheus looks back at Eurydice as she is being led out of the underworld, exactly what he was told not to do and which causes him to lose her, is represented by Orpheus happening to glance at Eurydice in the rear-view mirror of a car.

References [link]

External links [link]

Films directed by Jean Cocteau
Orphic Trilogy
Other films

https://wn.com/Orpheus_(film)

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PLAYLIST TIME:

A thousand times

by: Orpheus

You've seen my smile a thousand times,
And seen the wounds from which i've bled,
This empty shell gets left behind,
It's time to sever ancient times,
It speaks to me like words from a book,
A tale for which I died,
Don't look to me for sympathy,
You've shamed the words on which I thrive.
Take note of me, as your dreams turn to despair,
Find your solace in a place, devoid of all my thoughts,
To the reaper I am slain,
These razors tear within,
I'll life a life of sin, to rid myself of this
disgrace,
My demons come to fall.
Winning the battle, I leave behind,
Discard the chaos, i am inclined,
To seek a refuge, deep within my hate,
These thoughts inside, it's that i ache,
For a chance to execrate emotions I deny,
To seek vengeance, these thoughts I cry,
Alone at night I drown myself to sleep,
I find it hard to move, A fire burns inside.
Take note of me, as your dreams turn to despair,
Find your solace in a place, devoid of all my thoughts,
To the reaper I am slain,
These razors tear within,
I'll life a life of sin, to rid myself of this
disgrace,




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