Testament of Orpheus
Testament of Orpheus | |
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Marie-Josephe Yoyotte | |
Music by | Georges Auric George Frideric Handel Martial Solal |
Distributed by | Cinédis |
Release date |
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Running time | 80 minutes |
Country | France |
Language | French |
Testament of Orpheus (
One critic described it as a "wry, self-conscious re-examination of a lifetime's obsessions" with Cocteau placing himself at the center of the mythological and fictional world he spun throughout his books, films, plays and paintings.[2] The film includes numerous instances of "double takes", including one scene where Cocteau, walking past himself, looks back to see himself in what was described by one scholar as "a retrospective on the Cocteau œuvre".[3]
The New York Times called it "self-serving", noting that the pretension of the film was certainly intended by Cocteau as his last statement made on film: "as much a long-winded self-analysis as an extraordinary succession of visually arresting images".[1]
Picasso had introduced Cocteau to the photographer Lucien Clergue who was brought in to photo-document the film's production.[4] His black-and-white stills were published in 2001 as Jean Cocteau and The Testament of Orpheus.[5]
References
- ^ a b "Testament of Cocteau, a Cinematic Poet". The New York Times. June 18, 2000. Retrieved 26 July 2019.
- ^ "Jean Cocteau's Testament of Orpheus". Film Forum. Retrieved 26 July 2019.
- ISBN 9781501325045. Retrieved 26 July 2019.
- ^ [4] https://www.icp.org/browse/archive/constituents/lucien-clergue?all/all/all/all/0
- ^ [5] Clergue, Lucien. Jean Cocteau and The Testament of Orpheus. New York: Viking Studio, 2001, ISBN 0-670-89258-0
External links
- Testament of Orpheus at IMDb
- Testament of Orpheus an essay by Jean Cocteau at the Criterion Collection