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Le testament d'Orphée, ou ne me demandez pas pourquoi! (1960)
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Overview
User Rating:
Release Date:
18 February 1960 (France) morePlot:
The Poet looks back over his life and work, recalling his inspirations and obsessions. full summary | full synopsisAwards:
Nominated for BAFTA Film Award. moreUser Comments:
Jean Cocteau brilliantly evokes memories of his past triumphs! moreCast
(Complete credited cast)| Jean Cocteau | ... | Himself - the Poet |
Additional Details
Parents Guide:
Add content advisory for parentsRuntime:
Germany:79 min | UK:83 min | USA:79 minCountry:
FranceLanguage:
FrenchColor:
Black and WhiteAspect Ratio:
1.37 : 1 moreSound Mix:
MonoFun Stuff
Trivia:
Cocteau's last film. moreQuotes:
Himself - the Poet: And the flower?Cégeste: Take it to her. After all, the goddess is a woman and women never object to being offered flowers
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Discuss this movie with other users on IMDb message board for Le testament d'Orphée, ou ne me demandez pas pourquoi! (1960)| Recent Posts (updated daily) | User |
|---|---|
| The banal dialogue vs. the non-banal images | zurichpoet |
| Picasso in Testament of Orpheus | weeble0099 |
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French national treasure Jean Cocteau's last film is as personal and private as it's title suggest. Le Testament d'Orphee is a fond farewell to cinema with it's free-flowing, spirited collection of images and scenes that includes characters from Cocteau's past films and personal friends. One would hardly imagine a cinematic poet like Jean Cocteau would be so crass as to make something like a mere sequel to his acclaimed Orpheus/Orphee (1950). And instead what Cocteau does is to give us perhaps cinema's first meta-film. The film itself is an autobiographical fantasia of his whole life. Playing various versions of himself, Cocteau glides through the film as a time traveler in search of his place in the universe. He called it an active poem.
The film was shot on location at Les Baux in the South of France, a landscape whose rough limestone canyons appealed to Cocteau even more than Greece. Francine Weinweller and the main crew put up at that gourmet's mecca, the Hostellerie de la Baumaniere. Francine had a costume part in the film as La Dame qui s'est trompe d'epoque. All the icons out of Cocteau's past were woven into the visual testament - mirrors, horses, flowers, tapestries, and many of his friends - Dermit, Marais, Yul Brynner, Picasso and his wife, among others, appeared.
Unfortunately for Cocteau, public and critics, weaned on the literature of commitment popularized by Sartre and Camus, turned their backs on Le Testament d'Orphee, finding it a self-serving celluloid relic, oddly out of step with the times. One voice, however, and an important one, praised the film. Young Francois Truffaut, winner of a large prize for his film Les Quatre Cents Coups, had turned the money over to Cocteau to help finance Le Testament. Truffaut liked the finished product, which he considered a remake, thirty years later, of Le Sang d'un Poete. Truffaut was not alone in seeing Cocteau, judged by his previous films, as one of the main precursors of New Wave filmmakers.
Le Testament d'Orphee is a misunderstood masterpiece. Brilliant!!!!