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Title: Testament of Orpheus (1960)
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Nominated for
1
BAFTA Film Award.
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Plot Summary
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Plot Synopsis
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Storyline
The poet Jean Cocteau is lost in space-time. He has been in the 18th century and is now turning up at different moments in professor Langevin's life. The professor has invented some bullets, which travel faster than light. With one of them he kills Cocteau, who is resurrected as his old self, but is still caught in the space between fantasy and reality. At a gypsy camp a woman saves a photo out of the fire and restores it. On the photo Cocteau recognizes Cégeste from his film Orphée. He tears the photo into pieces and throws it into the sea. Immediately Cégeste himself jumps out of the water. He brings Cocteau to a rogatory commission led by Heurtebise and The Princess from the film Orphée. Cocteau admits that he has constantly attempted to enter a world which is not his own, a world that is beyond the limits of man, and that disobedience is like a religion for him. The commission imposes on him the sentence of life. In a hall inside some stone ruins the goddess Athena kills Cocteau ... Written by Maths Jesperson {maths.jesperson1@comhem.se}
Plot Keywords:
professor | poet | death | experimental film | breaking the fourth wall |Genres:
BiographyParents Guide:
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Details
Country:
FranceLanguage:
FrenchRelease Date:
18 February 1960 (France) See more »Also Known As:
Le testament d'Orphée See more »Company Credits
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IMDbPro »
Technical Specs
Runtime:
Sound Mix:
MonoColor:
Black and WhiteAspect Ratio:
1.37 : 1
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Cégeste: Take it to her. After all, the goddess is a woman and women never object to being offered flowers
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Did You Know?
Trivia
Having run out of funds, Cocteau was able to complete the film with the prize money that Francois Truffaut had just won for "Les Quatre Cents Coups" (1959). See more »Quotes
Jean Cocteau - 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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Jean Cocteau's final filmic flight of fantasy is very special indeed.
Adopting the guise of a poet 'unstuck in time', Cocteau ranges over his life in the world of poetry. It's a phantasmorgorical whirl of imagery, with plenty of humour, pathos and an enormous, transcendent sense of wonder. There's also a trial sequence where the characters from his earlier success 'Orphee' try him for bringing them into existence !
Some of Cocteau famous friends feature in brief cameos. Look out for Picasso and Bardot.
You don't have to be a Cocteau fan to enjoy this movie. All you need is an interest in the nature of creativity and an enjoyment of poetry, symbolic art, and the wonderfully cinematic music of Georges Auric, who scored all Cocteau's major films.