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Orphic Trilogy - Criterion Collection DVD
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: DVD
EAN: 9780780023161
Format: Box set, Black & White, DVD-Video, NTSC
ISBN: 0780023161
Label: Criterion
Manufacturer: Criterion
Number Of Items: 3
Picture Format: Academy Ratio
Publisher: Criterion
Region Code: 1
Release Date: June 27, 2000
Running Time: 225 minutes
Sales Rank: 15319
Studio: Criterion
Theatrical Release Date: November 29, 1950
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Editorial Review:
Description:
Decadent, subversive, and bristling with artistic invention, the myth-born cinema of Jean Cocteau disturbs as much as it charms. Cocteau was the most versatile of artists in prewar Paris. Poet, novelist, playwright, painter, celebrity, and maker of cinema-his many talents converged in bold, dreamlike films that continue to enthrall audiences around the world. In The Blood of Poet, Orpheus, and Testament of Orpheus, Cocteau utilizes the Orphic myth to explore the complex relationships between the artist and his creations, reality and the imagination. The Criterion Collection is proud to present the DVD premiere of the Orphic Trilogy in a special limited-edition three-disc box set.
Blood of a Poet
"Poets . . . shed not only the red blood of their hearts but the white blood of their souls," proclaimed Jean Cocteau of his groundbreaking first film-an exploration of the plight of the artist, the power of metaphor and the relationship between art and dreams. One of cinema's great experiments, this first installment of the Orphic Trilogy stretches the medium to its limits in an effort to capture the poet's obsession with the struggle between the forces of life and death. Criterion is proud to present The Blood of a Poet (Le Sang d'un poète).
Orpheus
Jean Cocteau's 1940s update of the Orphic myth depicts Orpheus (Jean Marais), a famous poet scorned by the Left Bank youth, and his love for both his wife Eurydice (Marie Déa) and the mysterious Princess (Maria Casarès). Seeking inspiration, the poet follows the Princess from the world of the living to the land of the deceased through Cocteau's trademark "mirrored portal." As the myth unfolds, the director's visually poetic style pulls the audience into realms both real and imagined in this, the centerpiece to his Orphic Trilogy. Criterion is proud to present Orpheus (Orphée) in a gorgeous new digital transfer.
Testament of Orpheus
In his last film, legendary writer/artist/filmmaker Jean Cocteau portrays an 18th-century poet who travels through time on a quest for divine wisdom. In a mysterious wasteland, he meets several symbolic phantoms that bring about his death and resurrection. With an eclectic cast that includes Pablo Picasso, Jean-Pierre Leáud, Jean Marais and Yul Brynner, Testament of Orpheus (Le Testament de Orphée) brings full circle the journey Cocteau began in The Blood of a Poet, an exploration of the torturous relationship between the artist and his creations. Criterion is proud to present the last installment of the Orphic Trilogy in a new digital transfer.
Amazon.com:
The Blood of a Poet
"A realistic documentary of unreal situations" reads the introductory card of Jean Cocteau's debut film, which recalls the work of the silent surrealists (notably Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí's Un Chien Andalou and L'Âge d'Or). Cocteau uses dream imagery to explore poetry, artistic creation, memory, death, and rebirth in four separate fantasy sequences. In the first scene, an artist confronts his creations when they take on a life of their own. In the second, he dives through a mirror (a primitive but startling effect Cocteau refines for Orpheus) and into a skewed hall where every door reveals a fantastic dream scene. The third sequence finds a gang of boys turning a snowball fight into a cruel war, and in the last an audience gathers to witness a dead boy's resurrection amidst a strange card game. These descriptions do little to communicate the poetry of each segment, which rely on creative imagery to create meaning not in stories but in symbols and metaphors. Cocteau's realization is often stiff and stilted, the work of a visual artist transforming still images into an medium that moves through time, but it's never less than beautiful and evocative. Cocteau returned to many of the same themes in Orpheus and The Testament of Orpheus. --Sean Axmaker
Orpheus
A Parisian poet becomes seduced by the prospect of eternal fame in Jean Cocteau's jazzy 1949 update of the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus. The café set won't give successful Orpheus (Jean Marais) the time of day, so he obliges when the Princess of Death (Maria Casarés) orders him into her Rolls Royce with her injured young protégé. It isn't long before the poet realizes the commanding Princess is no ordinary benefactor of the arts; for one thing, she can travel through mirrors. The next day, Orpheus returns to his frantic wife Eurydice (Marie Déa) with the kindly chauffeur Heurtibise (François Périer), but remains distracted by the Princess and the cryptic messages from her car radio. The equally smitten Princess eventually takes Eurydice before her time, which results in an underworld trial about her actions. To get his wife back, Orpheus must promise to never to look at his wife, but his heart's not in it. This black-and-white film slyly explores the dark side of the creative urge with panache. Dreamy and mesmerizing, it depicts an underworld not too different from everyday life. With subtitles. --Diane Garrett
The Testament of Orpheus
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
Average Rating: 
Rating:
- Poetry from the UnderworldThe Blood of a Poet - Orpheus - The Testament of Orpheus - even the titles are evocative!
Superlatives fall short in attempting to describe these magical, dreamlike films, so rich with myth & beauty & mystery. Cocteau accomplishes something very difficult: he manages to be in control of his symbols, but handles their reins with a deceptively casual touch, so that there's never a hint of didactic rigidity, which would be death to such works. The overall atmosphere remains mysterious, ... Read More
Rating:
- An Ephemeral Vision of Life and DeathOrpheus is the second film in the Orphic Trilogy by Jean Cocteau and after watching "The Blood of a Poet" it makes much more sense. You are thrown into a similar world, and if you embrace the magical realism that is somewhat haunting, it becomes quite a delicious story with a purpose.
Based on the Greek myth of Orpheus, the main couple, Orpheus the poet and his wife the somewhat fragile Eurydice (killed by a motorbike instead of a snake), experience life in a world where they are presented ... Read More
Rating:
- A superb centerpiece.Jean Cocteau's "Orphee," along with his earlier "La Belle et la Bete," must be ranked among the greatest of French films. This highly personal version of the myth of Orpheus remains a testament both to the the power of poetic imagery on film and to Cocteau's genius as a creator of such imagery. Cocteau's Orphee (Jean Marais) is a brusque, egocentric, dissatisfied soul who, to paraphrase Keats, is more than half in love with Death. As portrayed by Maria Casares, Death is far from the easeful presence Keats ... Read More
Rating:
- Astonish UsCriterion's done a nice Criterion-quality job in assembling Jean Cocteau's 3 most famous films, but seeing them all together left me a little disappointed. In returning to the Orpheus myth three times over a thirty year span, Cocteau displayed an ongoing fascination with the artist as a chosen creature, attuned to a special realm of beauty that eludes the common run of humankind. To my mind though, these films are more concerned with revering the Poet than with being poetic. The special effects they rely on ... Read More
Rating:
- When the death dies for love!If you are one of those people who still doubts the movie is far from being an artistic ecpression; come to Cocteu's world and please convince by yourself about the veracity of this affirmation.
Cocteau adapted the classic Orpheus's myth to the present times, but keeping the essential basis of the myth and its veil's mystery. The poetry literally loads the picture all along the way.
Blood of a poet constitutes undoubtedly, the first reference step you must ascend to higher peaks. The ... Read More
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DVD : Orphic Trilogy - Criterion Collection
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