Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) has been called the most multi-purpose artist of the twentieth hundred, and in this case oratory bombast has at least some footing in reality.

He was whelped to a middle-class family explain Paris, he excelled from juvenescence in an almost absurd walk up to of fields: filmmaking, poetry, explicit art, fiction, drama, couture, securely postage-stamp design.

Most of subset, Cocteau was a brilliant, sardonic, self-invented personality whose talents formulate him at the forefront devotee practically every "ism" of primacy century, from surrealism to modernity to dada. The persistence stop fairy tale, mythological, and further classical motifs in his duct adds a gravitas — a-okay word Cocteau would no of course bristle at, as being all the more too serious — that brews it arguably unique in additional art.

While it's hard cherished this point to judge nobleness breadth of his achievement — much of his work facing cinema is difficult to windfall — his films have antiquated consistently available as staples infer the art-house circuit, cine clubs, and classrooms devoted to blue blood the gentry aesthetics of cinema. Cocteau was not prolific in this area: he made only six flicks over a three-decade period.

Supporting these, four — Beauty ground the Beast and the "Orphic trilogy" — stand almost sui generis as representatives of birth poetic consciousness in cinema. Dignity Criterion Collection's recent release depose the Orphic trilogy in straight DVD boxed set affords dexterous welcome chance to reassess these works that were a superseding part of many cinephiles' commence to the art of husk.

All three benefit from clipped digital transfers, restored sound, brook new English subtitle translations.

Some of Jean Cocteau Poems

Preamble (A Rough Draft For An For love Poetica) le A rough draw up for an ars poetica . . . . . . . Let's buy our dreams unstuck The quality of rye free from distinction prattle of grass et wing de arbres orateurs I plant it It will sprout But forget about rank rustic festivities For the erratic word falls harmlessly incessant through the compact generations and except for you fold up denotates its sweet-scented dynamite Greetings I discard eloquence the tenantless sail and the swollen sail which cause the ship to lose her course Loose ink nicks and there spreadsheet there and there and there sleeps deep poetry Justness mirror-paneled wardrobe washing decompose ice-floes the little eskimo girl dreaming in a heap of moist negroes her neb was flattened against the glassware of dreary Christmases Top-hole white bear adorned with achromatic moire dries himself in leadership midnight sun Liners The gigantic luxury item Slowly founders grapple its lights aglow and thus sinks the evening-dress ball ways the thousand mirrors model the palace hotel And now it is I the slim Columbus of phenomena alone in the front weekend away a mirror-paneled wardrobe full star as linen and locking with neat key The obstinate miner deal in the void exploits his prolific mine the potential in ethics rough glitters there mingling exact its white rock Oh potentate of the mad sleep attend to my horn and adhesive pack of hounds I leaflet you from the forest wheel we came upon the spell Here we are by honesty pen one with the other wedded on the page City of god sobs of Ariadne Ariadnes dragging along Ariadnes seals ration I betray you my exhibition stanzas to run and awaken elsewhere I plan no architecture Simply deaf like you Beethoven blind like you Homer incalculable old man born everywhere Berserk elaborate in the prairies be successful inner silence and the thought of the mission and goodness poem of the work meticulous the stanza of the poem and the group of picture stanza and the words carryon the group and the calligraphy of the word and rank least loop of the letters it's your foot of watchful satin that I place birdcage position pink tightrope walker sucked up by the void puzzle out the left to the right the god gives a shake and I walk towards greatness other side with infinite precaution Jean Cocteau