Orpheus (1950)

 Jean Cocteau's "Orpheus"

One thing that I really like about French director Jean Cocteau is his utterly unconventional and unapologetically fantastical sense of storytelling. With his 1950 film "Orpheus," he takes the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice and creates a contemporary psychological fantasy. I was expecting "Orpheus" to be a more untethered surrealist piece like its predecessor film, 1932's "Blood of a Poet." However, despite its fantastical images, psychologically surreal, and effect-driven visuals, "Orpheus" is a far more realist piece than you would expect. 

The film centers on a contemporary poet named Orpheus caught in a creative crisis. While once at the top of his game, he now finds that younger protegees have burst through the art world with their inventive new poetry. Orpheus becomes so obsessive over trying to retain whatever creativity he had before that not only does he steal the work of a poet dying in the street, he obsessively listens to a radio station broadcasting obscure poetry. Little does Orpheus realize that these circumstances were all a ploy by the incarnation of Death to lure Orpheus to her. It is revealed that Death is in love with Orpheus and kills his wife out of jealousy. With the help of Death's chauffeur, Orpheus follows death into the underworld to get her back.

I think the first thing to note is how autobiographical the film is. Sure, it is adapted from the Greek myth. But, Cocteau has completely infused his own personal relationship with love, death, and art all into a contemporized version of the story. Cocteau, now in his 60s, reflects on is oncoming irrelevance. He is uncertain of his creative future and is reaching and searching for new inspiration. The thing that calls to him most is death. He ever falls so in love with death that he begins to neglect everything else in his life. So, the story of "Orpheus" is like a dream. Cocteau's dream. The film is a journey into his subconscious, as we watch him navigate his own self-reflections. The reason he uses mirrors as a door to the other realm because mirrors reflect who we really are. By using mirrors, he's journeying into himself, and bringing us with him. Once again, Cocteau has completely subverted the fabrication of the film screen and immerses his viewers into a portal of his own subconscious. 

I think the reason I think Cocteau stabilizes his world with cinematic realism is because it almost seems like he wants to create a link between reality and abstractions. Typically, Cocteau wouldn't hesitate to completely dismember reality for the sake of fantasy. However, with "Orpheus," it is almost as if he is fusing the reality with the fantasy together. They become stuck to each other and forever tightly tethered. I think Reclam's Film Guides put it best: "Cocteau plays with myths and images in a fascinating way. He creates a world of penumbra, of puzzles, in which mirrors become doors to the afterlife, and black-uniformed motorcyclists becomes messengers of death. The decidedly everyday, realistic images become a vehicle for mysterious allusions: Death has the same face as love, and the poet is Death's favorite. The unreal invades reality - death wanders the streets of Paris: and the afterlife, with its ritual of interrogations and negotiations, appears emphatically this-worldly." It seems as though Cocteau does not differentiate reality from fantasy and fantasy from reality. To him, they are one in the same.

To film all the blending of real and non real lines, Cocteau's film is also notable for its practical and post-production effects. Liquid mirrors, landscapes filmed with negative, sequences shot in reverse, vertical shot of a plateau on the ground, superimposition, and mirrors spontaneously breaking all create the fabrication of reality Cocteau is searching for. To achieve a true spirit of subconscious visualization, Cocteau and his production team were completely unconventional in their creativity and ingenuity. This level of creative freedom is something critic Roger Ebert noted: "Films are rarely made for purely artistic reasons, experiments are discouraged, and stars as big as Marais are not cast in eccentric remakes of Greek myths." 

To many, "Orpheus" is a supreme example of how film can capture the subconscious, suspend disbelief, bend reality, and make it inseparable from fantasy. It is a dive into the mind of Jean Cocteau, using mythological parables, and enrapturing the viewer with cinematic newness and true creative spirit.