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"It is the unique power of the cinema to allow a great many people to dream the same dream together and to present illusion to us as if it were strict reality. It is, in short, an admirable vehicle for poetry." Jean Cocteau, at age 70, thus ruminates on the life and purpose of the creative artist in a poetic essay. Cocteau himself stars as a time-traveling poet bopping helplessly through the ages until an experimental scientist grounds him in a kind of never-never land where he defends himself to the judges of Orpheus, dies, and is resurrected to complete his sentence: "condemned to live." Though the film opens with scenes from
Orpheus, the series of symbolic encounters and surreal images more resembles
The Blood of a Poet. What's different is his cinematic assurance and sly sense of humor: shot through with jokey gags and playful imagery, the film is less philosophical treatise than career summation by way of farewell party. He's invited fictional characters (most of the cast of
Orpheus) and real-life friends (cameos range from Brigitte Bardot to Yul Brynner to Pablo Picasso) from his past and present to send him off to an uncertain future. The new Home Vision video and Criterion DVD releases feature the restored color sequence. Cocteau died in 1963, three years after completing the film.
--Sean Axmaker
Product Description
In his last film legendary writer, painter and filmmaker Jean Cocteau (
Beauty and the Beast) attempts to reconcile the world he lives in by portraying an 18th-century poet traveling through time on a quest for divine wisdom. He meets a scientist who can open doorways into new dimensions. The scientist's method only works by murdering his subject. Cocteau then rises from his symbolic death in a mysterious wasteland inhabited by other poets, judges, police, motorcyclists, Gypsies, Oedipus, the Sphinx and Minerva.
Testament of Orpheus is the final installment of the Orphic Cycle, following
Blood of a Poet, and
Orpheus. An eclectic cast includes Yul Brynner, Pablo Picasso, and a cameo from Brigitte Bardot.
VHS ~ Jean Marais
DVD ~ Nicole Stéphane
