Le testament d'Orphée, ou ne me demandez pas pourquoi! (1960)

User Rating:

7.3/10   

Director:

Jean Cocteau

Writer:

Jean Cocteau (writer)

Release Date:

18 February 1960 (France)

Genre:

Biography | Drama

Plot:

The Poet looks back over his life and work, recalling his inspirations and obsessions.

Plot Keywords:

Poet | Dream Like | Art | Breaking The Fourth Wall | Time Travel

Awards:

Nominated for BAFTA Film Award.

Cast

Jean Cocteau

...

Himself - the Poet

Also Known As:

Le testament d'Orphée (France) (short title)
The Testament of Orpheus (USA)

Runtime:

Germany:79 min | UK:83 min | USA:79 min

Country:

France

Language:

French

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-12 | Sweden:11 | UK:15 | West Germany:16 (w)

Filming Locations:

France

Company:

Les Editions Cinégraphiques

Trivia:

Cocteau's last film.

Quotes:

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

Movie Connections:

Follows Orphée (1950)

Jean Cocteau brilliantly evokes memories of his past triumphs!

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!!!!