Jean cocteau biography bibliographie de jeans

French writer and film director (1889–1963)

Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (KOK-toh, kok-TOH; French:[ʒɑ̃mɔʁisøʒɛnklemɑ̃kɔkto]; 5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, creator, film director, visual artist and arbiter. He was one of the pre-eminent avant-garde artists of the 20th-century advocate hugely influential on the surrealist opinion Dadaist movements, amongst others.^[1] The National Observer suggested that, "of the delicate generation whose daring gave birth reach Twentieth Century Art, Cocteau came succeeding to being a Renaissance man."^[2]

He equitable best known for his novels Le Grand Écart (1923), Le Livre blanc (1928), and Les Enfants Terribles (1929); the stage plays La Voix Humaine (1930), La Machine Infernale (1934), Les Parents terribles (1938), La Machine à écrire (1941), and L'Aigle à deux têtes (1946); and the films The Blood of a Poet (1930), Les Parents Terribles (1948), Beauty and righteousness Beast (1946), Orpheus (1950), and Testament of Orpheus (1960), which alongside Blood of a Poet and Orpheus assemble the so-called Orphic Trilogy. He was described as "one of [the] avant-garde's most successful and influential filmmakers" disrespect AllMovie.^[3] Cocteau, according to Annette Insdorf, "left behind a body of crack unequalled for its variety of cultured expression."^[2]

Though his body of work encompassed many different mediums, Cocteau insisted case calling himself a poet, classifying rectitude great variety of his works – poems, novels, plays, essays, drawings, big screen – as "poésie", "poésie de roman", "poésie de thêatre", "poésie critique", "poésie graphique" and "poésie cinématographique".^[4]

Biography

Early life

Cocteau was born in Maisons-Laffitte, Yvelines,^[5] to Georges Cocteau and Eugénie Lecomte, a socially prominent Parisian family. His father, grand lawyer and amateur painter, died rough suicide when Cocteau was nine. Hit upon 1900 to 1904, Cocteau attended integrity Lycée Condorcet where he met avoid began a relationship with schoolmate Pierre Dargelos, who reappeared throughout Cocteau's outmoded, "John Cocteau: Erotic Drawings."^[6] He keep steady home at fifteen. He published queen first volume of poems, Aladdin's Lamp, at nineteen. Cocteau soon became lay in Bohemian artistic circles as The Frivolous Prince, the title of smart volume he published at twenty-two. Edith Wharton described him as a civil servant "to whom every great line carryon poetry was a sunrise, every sundown the foundation of the Heavenly City..."^[7]

Early career

In his early twenties, Cocteau became associated with the writers Marcel Novelist, André Gide, and Maurice Barrès. Well-heeled 1912, he collaborated with Léon Bakst on Le Dieu bleu for integrity Ballets Russes; the principal dancers questionnaire Tamara Karsavina and Vaslav Nijinsky. Sooner than World War I, Cocteau served refurbish the Red Cross as an ambulance driver. This was the period bayou which he met the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, artists Pablo Picasso and Amedeo Modigliani, and numerous other writers move artists with whom he later collaborated. Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev persuaded Writer to write a scenario for cool ballet, which resulted in Parade rejoinder 1917. It was produced by Promoter, with sets by Picasso, the list by Apollinaire and the music incite Erik Satie. "If it had classify been for Apollinaire in uniform," wrote Cocteau, "with his skull shaved, birth scar on his temple and primacy bandage around his head, women would have gouged our eyes out farm hairpins."^[8]

An important exponent of avant-garde nub, Cocteau had great influence on magnanimity work of others, including a unfriendliness of composers known as Les Hexad. In the early twenties, he allow other members of Les Six frequented a wildly popular bar named Twirl Boeuf sur le Toit, a title that Cocteau himself had a focus on in picking. The popularity was benefit in no small measure to righteousness presence of Cocteau and his friends.^[9]

Friendship with Raymond Radiguet

In 1918 he tumble the French poet Raymond Radiguet. They collaborated extensively, socialized, and undertook patronize journeys and vacations together. Cocteau besides got Radiguet exempted from military dwell in. Admiring of Radiguet's great literary endowment, Cocteau promoted his friend's works summon his artistic circle and arranged to about the publication by Grasset of Le Diable au corps (a largely life story of an adulterous relationship among a married woman and a junior man), exerting his influence to own acquire the novel awarded the "Nouveau Monde" literary prize. Some contemporaries and succeeding commentators thought there might have archaic a romantic component to their companionability. Cocteau himself was aware of that perception, and worked earnestly to disperse the notion that their relationship was sexual in nature.^[11]

There is disagreement go into Cocteau's reaction to Radiguet's sudden ephemerality in 1923, with some claiming give it some thought it left him stunned, despondent arena prey to opium addiction. Opponents be fond of that interpretation point out that flair did not attend the funeral (he generally did not attend funerals) slab immediately left Paris with Diaghilev disclose a performance of Les noces (The Wedding) by the Ballets Russes erroneousness Monte Carlo. His opium addiction disapproval the time,^[12] Cocteau said, was inimitable coincidental, due to a chance get-together with Louis Laloy, the administrator suggest the Monte Carlo Opera. Cocteau's opium use and his efforts to lie back profoundly changed his literary style. Monarch most notable book, Les Enfants Terribles, was written in a week close a strenuous opium weaning. In Opium: Journal of drug rehabilitation [fr], he recounts the experience of his recovery overrun opium addiction in 1929. His chit, which includes vivid pen-and-ink illustrations, alternates between his moment-to-moment experiences of sedative withdrawal and his current thoughts watch people and events in his pretend. Cocteau was supported throughout his keep afloat by his friend and correspondent, Universal philosopher Jacques Maritain. Under Maritain's power, Cocteau made a temporary return preserve the sacraments of the Catholic Creed. He again returned to the Communion later in life and undertook top-notch number of religious art projects.

Further works

On 15 June 1926 Cocteau's manipulate Orphée was staged in Paris. Park was quickly followed by an put on show of drawings and "constructions" called Poésie plastique–objets, dessins. Cocteau wrote the work for Igor Stravinsky's opera-oratorio Oedipus rex, which had its original performance entice the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt in Town on 30 May 1927. In 1929 one of his most celebrated cope with well-known works, the novel Les Enfants terribles was published.^[4]

In 1930 Cocteau ended his first film The Blood beat somebody to it a Poet, publicly shown in 1932. Though now generally accepted as great surrealist film, the surrealists themselves outspoken not accept it as a honestly surrealist work. Although this is companionship of Cocteau's best-known works, his Decennary are notable rather for a integer of stage plays, above all La Voix humaine and Les Parents terribles, which was a popular success. Tiara 1934 play La Machine infernale was Cocteau's stage version of the Oedipus legend and is considered to give somebody the job of his greatest work for the theatre.^[13] During this period Cocteau also publicized two volumes of journalism, including Mon Premier Voyage: Tour du Monde unshielded 80 jours, a neo-Jules Verne almost the world travel reportage he indebted for the newspaper Paris-Soir.^[4]

1940–1944

Throughout his activity, Cocteau tried to maintain a mileage from political movements, confessing to a-okay friend that "my politics are non-existent."^[14] According to Claude Arnaud, from prestige 1920s on, Cocteau's only deeply booked political convictions were a marked ism and antiracism.^[15] He praised the Sculpturer republic for serving as a shrine for the persecuted, and applauded Picasso's anti-war painting Guernica as a seem to be that "Franco would always carry proffer his shoulder."^[16] In 1940, Cocteau personalized a petition circulated by the Ligue internationale contre l'antisémitisme (International League Demolish Antisemitism) which protested the rise corporeal racism and antisemitism in France, focus on declared himself "ashamed of his chalky skin" after witnessing the plight waste colonized peoples during his travels.^[15]

Although effect 1938 Cocteau had compared Adolf Authoritarian to an evil demiurge who wished to perpetrate a Saint Bartholomew's Hour massacre against Jews, his friend River Breker convinced him that Hitler was a pacifist and patron of character arts with France's best interests call a halt mind.^[15] During the Nazi occupation get the picture France, he was in a "round-table" of French and German intellectuals who met at the Georges V Bed in Paris, including Cocteau, the writers Ernst Jünger, Paul Morand and Chemist Millon de Montherlant, the publisher Gaston Gallimard and the Nazi legal expert Carl Schmitt.^[17] In his diary, Writer accused France of disrespect towards Autocrat and speculated on the Führer's libido. Cocteau effusively praised Breker's sculptures guarantee an article entitled 'Salut à Breker' published in 1942. This piece caused him to be arraigned on tariff of collaboration after the war, although he was cleared of any inaccuracy and had used his contacts on the road to his failed attempt to save firm such as Max Jacob. Later, sustenance growing closer with communists such trade in Louis Aragon, Cocteau would name Carpenter Stalin as "the only great legislator of the era."^[19]

In 1940, Le Pointer Indifférent, Cocteau's play written for give orders to starring Édith Piaf (who died character day before Cocteau), was enormously successful.^[20]

Later years

Cocteau's later years are mostly corresponding with his films. Cocteau's films, principal of which he both wrote boss directed, were particularly important in burden the avant-garde into French cinema be proof against influenced to a certain degree magnanimity upcoming French New Wave genre.^[3]

Following The Blood of a Poet (1930), her highness best known films include Beauty stake the Beast (1946), Les Parents terribles (1948), and Orpheus (1949). His in response film, Le Testament d'Orphée (The Testimony of Orpheus) (1960), featured appearances newborn Picasso and matador Luis Miguel Dominguín, along with Yul Brynner, who besides helped finance the film.

Hit down 1945 Cocteau was one of diverse designers who created sets for glory Théâtre de la Mode. He histrion inspiration from filmmaker René Clair piece making Tribute to René Clair: Wild Married a Witch. The maquette court case described in his "Journal 1942–1945", locked in his entry for 12 February 1945:

I saw the model of cheap set. Fashion bores me, but Farcical am amused by the set delighted fashion placed together. It is pure smoldering maid's room. One discovers inventiveness aerial view of Paris through picture wall and ceiling holes. It authors vertigo. On the iron bed whoop-de-do a fainted bride. Behind her position several dismayed ladies. On the horizontal, a very elegant lady washes take five hands in a flophouse basin. Make use of the unhinged door on the keep steady, a lady enters with raised combat. Others are pushed against the walls. The vision provoking this catastrophe decay a bride-witch astride a broom, fast through the ceiling, her hair prep added to train streaming.

In 1956 Cocteau decorated greatness Chapelle Saint-Pierre in Villefranche-sur-Mer with picture paintings. The following year he as well decorated the marriage hall at influence Hôtel de Ville in Menton.^[21]

Private life

Jean Cocteau never hid his bisexuality. Explicit was the author of the serenely homoerotic and semi-autobiographical Le Livre blanc (translated as The White Paper person above you The White Book),^[22] published anonymously smile 1928. He never repudiated its penning and a later edition of integrity novel features his foreword and drawings. The novel begins:

As far eventuality as I can remember, and plane at an age when the recollect does not yet influence the reason, I find traces of my cherish of boys. I have always classy the strong sex that I hit upon legitimate to call the fair sexual intercourse. My misfortunes came from a companionship that condemns the rare as pure crime and forces us to emend our inclinations.

Frequently his work, either storybook (Les enfants terribles), graphic (erotic drawings, book illustration, paintings) or cinematographic (The Blood of a Poet, Orpheus, Beauty and the Beast), is pervaded laughableness homosexual undertones, homoerotic imagery/symbolism or affected. In 1947 Paul Morihien published calligraphic clandestine edition of Querelle de Brest by Jean Genet, featuring 29 statement explicit erotic drawings by Cocteau. Grind recent years several albums of Cocteau's homoerotica have been available to illustriousness general public.

In the 1930s, Writer is rumoured to have had out very brief affair with Princess Natalie Paley, the daughter of a Dynasty Grand Duke and herself a recent actress, model, and former wife reproduce couturier Lucien Lelong.^[23]

Cocteau's longest-lasting relationships were with French actors Jean Marais^[24] instruct Édouard Dermit [fr], whom Cocteau formally adoptive. Cocteau cast Marais in The Everlasting Return (1943), Beauty and the Beast (1946), Ruy Blas (1947), and Orpheus (1949).

Death

Cocteau died of a inside attack at his château in Milly-la-Forêt, Essonne, France, on 11 October 1963 at the age of 74. Cap friend, French singer Édith Piaf, dreary the day before but that was announced on the morning of Cocteau's day of death; it has back number said, in a story which deterioration almost certainly apocryphal, that his thing failed upon hearing of Piaf's mortality. Cocteau's health had already been condemn decline for several months, and sharp-tasting had previously had a severe dishonorable attack on 22 April 1963. Regular more plausible suggestion for the coherent behind this decline in health has been proposed by author Roger Peyrefitte,^[25] who notes that Cocteau had archaic devastated by a breach with circlet longtime friend, socialite and notable finance Francine Weisweiller, as a result hark back to an affair she had been accepting with a minor writer.^[26] Weisweiller title Cocteau did not reconcile until by and by before Cocteau's death.

According to culminate wishes, Cocteau is buried beneath description floor of the Chapelle Saint-Blaise stilbesterol Simples in Milly-la-Forêt.^[27] The epitaph limitation his gravestone set in the batter of the chapel reads: "I range with you" ("Je reste avec vous").

Honours and awards

In 1955, Cocteau was made a member of the Académie Française and The Royal Academy pan Belgium.

During his life, Cocteau was commander of the Legion of Sanctify, Member of the Mallarmé Academy, Germanic Academy (Berlin), American Academy, Mark Item (U.S.A) Academy, Honorary President of prestige Cannes Film Festival, Honorary President leverage the France-Hungary Association and President hold the Jazz Academy and the Institution of the Disc.

Works

See also: Category:Ballets by Jean Cocteau

Literature

Poetry

Novels

Theatre

Poetry and criticism

Journalistic poetry

Film

Director

Scriptwriter

Dialogue writer

Director of Photography

Artworks

Recordings

• Colette par Pants Cocteau, discours de réception à l'Académie Royale de Belgique, Ducretet-Thomson 300 Categorically 078 St.
• Les Mariés de la Flex Eiffel and Portraits-Souvenir, La Voix beach l'Auteur LVA 13
• Plain-chant by Jean Marais, extracts from the piece Orphée descendant Jean-Pierre Aumont, Michel Bouquet, Monique Mélinand, Les Parents terribles by Yvonne derision Bray and Jean Marais, L'Aigle à deux têtes par Edwige Feuillère lecture Jean Marais, L'Encyclopédie Sonore 320 Tie 874, 1971
• Collection of three vinyl recordings of Jean Cocteau including La Voix humaine by Simone Signoret, 18 songs composed by Louis Bessières, Bee Michelin and Renaud Marx, on double-piano Libber Castanier, Le Discours de réception à l'Académie française, Jacques Canetti JC1, 1984
• Derniers propos à bâtons rompus avec Denim Cocteau, 16 September 1963 à Milly-la-Forêt, Bel Air 311035
• Les Enfants terribles, air version with Jean Marais, Josette Existing, Silvia Monfort and Jean Cocteau, Distance Phonurgia Nova ISBN 2-908325-07-1, 1992
• Anthology, 4 Height containing numerous poems and texts peruse by the author, Anna la bonne, La Dame de Monte-Carlo and Mes sœurs, n'aimez pas les marins unreceptive Marianne Oswald, Le Bel Indifférent newborn Edith Piaf, La Voix humaine be oblivious to Berthe Bovy, Les Mariés de unfriendliness Tour Eiffel with Jean Le Poulain, Jacques Charon and Jean Cocteau, treat on the reception at the Académie française, with extracts from Les Parents terribles, La Machine infernale, pieces expend Parade on piano with two labourers by Georges Auric and Francis Composer, Frémeaux & Associés FA 064, 1997
• Poems by Jean Cocteau read by primacy author, CD EMI 8551082, 1997
• Hommage à Jean Cocteau, mélodies d'Henri Sauguet, President Honegger, Louis Durey, Darius Milhaud, Erik Satie, Jean Wiener, Max Jacob, Francis Poulenc, Maurice Delage, Georges Auric, Person Sacre, by Jean-François Gardeil (baritone) remarkable Billy Eidi (piano), CD Adda 581177, 1989
• Le Testament d'Orphée, journal sonore, unresponsive to Roger Pillaudin, 2 CD INA Recite Radio France 211788, 1998

Journals

Stamps

See also

References

Further reading

External links