Orpheus
(1950)
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Orpheus
(1950)
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| Complete credited cast: | |||
| Jean Marais | ... | ||
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François Périer | ... | |
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María Casares | ... |
The Princess - Death
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Marie Déa | ... | |
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Henri Crémieux | ... |
L'éditeur
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Juliette Gréco | ... |
Aglaonice
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Roger Blin | ... |
The Poet
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Edouard Dermithe | ... | |
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Paul Amiot | ... |
Judge
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René Worms | ... |
Judge
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Raymond Faure |
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Pierre Bertin | ... |
Le commissaire
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Jacques Varennes | ... |
Judge
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| Rest of cast listed alphabetically: | |||
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André Carnège | ... |
Judge
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Claude Mauriac |
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Orphee is a poet who becomes obsessed with Death (the Princess). They fall in love. Orphee's wife, Eurydice, is killed by the Princess' henchmen and Orphee goes after her into the Underworld. Although they have become dangerously entangled, the Princess sends Orphee back out of the Underworld, to carry on his life with Eurydice. Written by <P.M.Laws@education.leeds.ac.uk>
This film is an updating of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. The film updates the action to post-war France, with Orpheus (played by Jean Marais) a famous but dis-satisfied poet.
The film focuses on the themes of love and death. Most notably Orpheus falling in love with a glamorous incarnation of Death (Maria Casares).
Writer-director Jean Cocteau turns the everyday world into a magical realm. Mirrors turn to pools which are portals to other worlds, car radios pick up coded messages from Death's World. In less talented hands than Cocteau's, the delicate fantasy could have easily become ridiculous but he handles it with brilliance and the film works perfectly.
Here Cocteau creates a truly poetic film. The story is magical and entertaining and the film is filled with wonderously surreal images (particularly striking is the frequent use of filming an action performed backwards, and then reversing it which creates a very strange impression).