Jean Cocteau

Therefore, he will spend several months in the south, leaving his retreat "under no circumstances". Apparently, van den Driesschen had asked Cocteau to join a literary event in Paris, which is why he appeals to his understanding as the person who knows him "better than anybody else" and also knows that he never refuses to help. Furthermore, Cocteau reminds his friend that the "poet is posthumous" and that his "presence is useless", as only his "phantom counts". - The film adaptation of Jean Cocteau's 1929 novel was the second feature film realized by Jean-Pierre Melville. Cocteau wrote the screenplay and provided the voice-over narration of the film..

My regret at not being with you is not simply a courtesy. What's preventing me from doing so has a great deal to do with this session. I've decided to return to the screen, but in a way that is particular to me, and which your show underscores perfectly. For me, film has always been a vehicle for the poetry that inhabits us and seeks to take shape by any means necessary. The admirable thing about film is that it makes the impossible possible and, by editing it, gives it a place in this world. If I say: 'Orpheus goes through the mirror' - you may not believe me. If I show it, I imitate the magnificent absurdity of spectacle. We dream and I share my dream with everyone. Many of my comrades in France and abroad now know the smallest secrets of how to shoot a remarkable film, and I myself have lost the innocence of a time when, knowing nothing about the cinematograph, I had to invent it for my own use, with the poet's blood. But no doubt I'll rediscover a little-read domain by not following the scholarly route, and by starting again to follow the example that sleep gives us when the ingenious mechanism of dreams organizes its plots. That's why I'm preparing Le Testament d'Orphée. That's why I'm trying to overcome the obstacles that routine places in my way, and that's why I can't be at the Sorbonne this evening, for which I offer you my fraternal regrets". - Le Testament d'Orphée was shot in 1959 with Jean Cocteau in the leading role and appeared the following year. The poetic movie with little plot includes cameos of Pablo Picasso, Jean Marais, Charles Aznavour, Jean-Pierre Léaud, and Yul Brunner. François Truffaut was Cocteau's production assistant for the film. - On headed stationery..

And you will have been a witness and the historiographer of our somewhat frightening times which will make people smile someday as a kind of 1900 and which, with the passing of time, will appear full of charm. Should you find it amusing to cite the sentences in Cartes Blanches where I saluted the appearances of the black rhythms that currently possess their academy in France, I give you authorization. I could not have guessed then that the anti-academicism of this music would have its own academy and would ask me to be its president.” Central vertical and horizontal folds with small separations at edges, and a few tiny edges tears, otherwise fine condition. Sicard was a French painter in the postimpressionist style, favoring wild and romantic nightlife scenes inspired by the Parisian bars and nightclubs he frequented. He traveled to New York in the 1930s, where he held an exhibition at the Marie Sterner Gallery in 1936; later that year he exhibited his new scenes of New York at Galerie Bignou in Paris. Sicard settled in the US in the 1950s, traveling between New York and Los Angeles, where he continued to create exuberant scenes of the vibrant cities. A wonderful letter in style and content by Cocteau, in which he also mentions his own Carte Blanche, a 1920 critical text in which Cocteau credited jazz with the salvation of modern French music..

Reynaldo en grand 2. Lemaître 3. Ernesta“), asking to reserve himself the right to make necessary corrections, and protesting against editorial revisions of his text („On n'a pas le droit de mutiler un texte et la suite logique d'une pensée. C'est un crime des lettres. Il fallait m'écrire, me téléphoner, me demander conseil. ,Un merveilleux vertige verbal’ je ne peux écrire cela. Pourquoi se substituer à moi?“). Finally, Cocteau is announcing to write one more article, but no further one..

Außerdem berichtet er, dass er eine Adaptation von Shakespeares Sommernachtstraum vornehme, die in London einen unvergleichlichen Erfolg habe, und er würde diese Inszenierung gerne mit Musik und französischen Stars übernehmen. Schließlich übt er Kritik an anderen Inszenierungen: "On établirait la réclame sur cette simplification. [...] L'erreur de Guitry c'est d'avoir "refait" Kismet - il avait perdu le climat, la saveur anglaises"..

Das Blut eines Dichters) gedreht. Im Laufe der Zeit wirkte er als Regisseur, Drehbuchautor bzw. als Schauspieler bei mehreren Filmen mit. Cocteau war mit Jean Marais befreundet, dem er gerne Rollen auf den Leib schrieb. Daher gilt Cocteau auch als Entdecker von Jean Marais..

Mais il me semble que tout ce qui concerne les visages, les rapports humains, les types, est admirable […]. Jeannot est merveilleux et Sologne et Yvonne, malgré son horreur d'elle-même et ses plaintes. Moulou était d'abord une étoile au cinéma. Maintenant il a compris qu'on tournait et refuse de jouer. Il y a des scènes bouleversantes dans la neige et lle jarddin de Marc. Le nain est extraordinaire. Yvonne, le nain et d'Yd font une drôle de famille qui te plaira. Lorsque les décors sont impossibles, Hubert les sauve […]. Il retourne à la projection sous une pluie battante ; ils tournent dans de grands hangars, etc. […].“ Der Brief befasst sich mit dem Film L’Éternal retour (deutscher Titel: Der ewige Bann), der 1943 unter der Regie von Jean Delannoy und mit einem Drehbuch von Jean Cocteau gedreht wurde. Erwähnt werden in dem Brief zudem Jean Marais, Madeleine Sologne, Yvonne de Bray, Piéral, Jean d’Yd, die in dem Film mitspielen - und der Hund Moulou, der die Rolle des treuen Familienhund hat. Zunächst beschreibt Cocteau seinen Gesundheitszustand: Lungenentzündung, 40 Grad Fieber. Er hadert damit, krank in Négresco angekommen zu sein, wo er seiner Arbeit nachkommen wollte. Er habe aber in die Studios gekonnt, in denen Delannoy dreht und ist zufrieden. Er habe die Sets aus der Ferne organisiert und lobt, was er sieht. „Es gibt alles in diesem Film (wegen Vakevichs russischem Wahnsinn)“. Dann geht Cocteau auf die Charaktere des Films ein. „Jeannot ist wunderbar, genauso Sologne und Yvonne“ - trotz ihres Schreckens über sich selbst und ihre Beschwerden. Dann äußert sich Cocteau über den Hund Moulou, der zuerst der heimliche Star war und jetzt, da gefilmt wird, nicht mehr recht mitmacht. Cocteau ist bewegt von den Szenen im Schnee und in Marcs Garten. Dann schreibt er vom kleinwüchsigen Schauspieler Piéral „er ist außergewöhnlich. Yvonne, der Zwerg und Yd bilden eine lustige Familie, die Ihnen gefallen wird.“ Mit L’Éternel retour hat Cocteau das Motiv von Tristan und Isolde in die Bretagne verlegt. Es geht darin um die Beschwörung einer Welt aus Halbschatten und Träumen. Regisseur war Jean Delannoy, der Produzent André Paulvé. Der Film machte den Hauptdarsteller Jean Marais über Nacht zum Star und zur Muse Cocteaus. Das Lexikon des Internationalen Films schrieb: „Delannoy, für den Jean Cocteau die mythische Geschichte von Tristan und Isolde in die Jetztzeit transponierte, hat, nicht zuletzt mit den hervorragenden Dialogen Cocteaus, einen sehr ernsten, bisweilen schwermütigen Film gedreht, bei dem die Dekors von Georges Wakhevitch und die Musik von Georges Auric eine große dramaturgische Rolle spielen. Thematik und Zwischentöne machen den Film zu einem wichtigen Dokument des französischen Kinos unter der Okkupation 1940 bis 1944.“.

Il me semble que nos manuscrits arriveront ensemble chez Grasset. Je redoute fort que le vôtre ne réduise le mien en poudre et que les savants fassent des gorges chaudes de ma science artisanale […].“ Cocteau schreibt, ihm gehe es wie dem Adressaten in Bezug auf den nicht näher erläuterten Sachverhalt. „Sie entfernt sich so schnell und leise von mir wie eine fliegende Untertasse.“ Er verschiebe dafür sogar die Textkorrekturen. Cocteau äußert sich, viele Fehler, Lücken und Widersprüche in dem nicht näher genannten Buch zu erkennen und spekuliert, dass die Bücher (seines und vermutlich das des Briefempfängers), zur gleichen Zeit bei dem von Bernard Grasset (1881-1955) betriebenen Verlag Éditions Grasset & Fasquelle ankommen werden. Cocteau äußert die Befürchtung, dass die Wissenschaftler über seine handwerkliche Arbeit herziehen werden. Cocteau betrachtete seine Arbeit als Handwerk, wie auch die Wochenzeitschrift „Die Zeit“ 1952 anlässlich eines Besuchs des Künstlers in Hamburg beschreibt: „Cocteau, der Romantiker, der zugleich der Mann der Theaterpraxis ist, der „artisan“, der sein Werk aus seiner Hände Arbeit entstehen läßt („Mein Kopf ist dumm“, sagt Cocteau), der alle Formen der Kunst erprobt, und der wie kein anderer ein Gefühl für die Bedürfnisse des breiten Publikums hat, ist auch der erste gewesen, der die universelle Bedeutung des Films als eines „Vehikels der Poesie“, als einer echten mythenbildenden künstlerischen Ausdrucksform erkannt hat. Denn im gleichen Sinne wie sein Theater will auch sein Film an das Herz des großen Publikums klopfen; er will – wenn auch unter Beibehaltung der „Falle“ – wahre Volkskunst werden. „Erst vierzehn Tage nach der Uraufführung eines Werkes erreicht man das wirkliche Publikum“, meint Cocteau. „Dieses Publikum gewinnt man in dem Augenblick, wo sich, wie im ‚Doppeladler‘, Jean Marais in der Schußlinie Edwige Feuilleres befindet und die Leute im Saale rufen (ich habe sie selbst gehört): „Vorsicht, pass auf!““ Trotz seiner Leistungen auf fast allen literarischen und künstlerischen Gebieten bestand Cocteau darauf, in erster Linie ein Dichter zu sein. Er nannte seine sämtlichen Werke Poesie. Eines seiner berühmten Zitate war der Spruch: „Gute Erziehung besteht darin, zu verbergen, wie sehr man sich selbst schätzt und wie wenig die anderen.“.

[…] Je ne mens jamais. […]“ II. ohne Ort. 1940. „[…] Tes secrétaires André F[raigneau] et Chateaubriant t’ont peut-être raconté que je sortais d’une clinique très pénible – d’où mon espèce de disparition. J’ai lu ton livre [à la recherche de la France] que je trouve d’une importance extrême et qui, seul, s’oppose à tant de désordres. J’aurais voulu te le dire et en parler avec toi […]“.

Charles s’y montre sans masque de théâtre avec toute sa noblesse et sa gentillesse et cette enfance dont il avait les colères (je le revois encore lancer une boîte de pastilles de Vichy qui éclatait comme une bombe). Et ce que j’aime c’est qu’il trouve le temps d’écrire de vraies lettres dans cette épouvantable époque de hâte, de téléphone et de radio. […] cette étonnante courbe de dos n’était point une bosse mais quelque bizarre instrument de musique dont il tirait des accents inoubliables de sa voix nasale et passionnée. Ah ! vous m’avez fait un beau cadeau d’anniversaire […]“.

. . . " [Film review]: "Such a Pretty Little Beach is one of the first French films that opposes heroically the dire industrialization of cinematography. By its relentless mechanism, by the photography where [cinematographer Henri] Alekan effaces work by dint of science, by the high cage of rain where Gérard Philipe casts his marvelous wounded bird face, the film of Yves Allégret deserves that the public renounce the idea that it forms of a film, and proceeds to read the film like a book." "Le Potomak": "A prediction before the war, an image of malaise, of youth in search of its way, a preface to the entire works of Jean Cocteau. . . ." "Olivier Larronde": "Olivier Larronde never yielded to any fashion, to any politeness. He understood, in a single blink of an eye, that the worst fashion was the one that doesn't think it is one and opposes fashions. This very young poet writes, with a diamond stylus, on the window pane against which the youth of 1947 moan or rebel. . . ." "Elegance and Fashion": "Elegance is not fashion. One is accustomed to confusing them. Elegance is an innate way of having fashion serve a particular allure that individualizes it and gives it a style resembling that of the human body. One sees that the form of the body itself changes with fashion, that shoulders widen or shrink, that the hips are accentuated or flattened . . . . "Fashion is insolent, haughty, rapid. It dies quickly. . . . It passes. It shows contempt. It crushes. . . ." "At the Home of Belgian Friends": "There is a Beauty and there is a beast. Beauty is a little country girl disguised as a princess. The Beast is a Prince Charming transformed into a beast. There's a family that lives in a house where the style of Vermeer reigns. . . . There is the word of Paul Eluard, whom one asks what he thinks of this film and who answers: to understand this film, one must love one's dog more than one's car. There are people who judge works and works that judge people. . . . There is Jean Cocteau who comes to address him [Eluard] and who greets him." [On Indian art]: "One of my friends sent from the temples of India photographs of sculpture too high and too distant to be seen with the naked eye. This work results in a magnificence so grave and so lively, an enigma so noble, that I invoke them when the question of liberty arises. . . . I bow before races where the slightest gesture signifies. I bow before the ceremonial of the profound Indies." "Hello from Paris": "Pretty, graceful, charming, adorable, light, tender; all of these terms are reduced by innumerable use, one would . . . restore them anew to apply them to Vertès like a white robe. . . . "Vertès could have descended the slope of success and gotten drunk there from vertigo. He hasn't done that. He kept his control and preserved his line. . . . "Greetings, Vertès, on your return from America. Hello from Paris.".

- From the enclosed sonnet: "Beauté, capable, si votre jeunesse plonge, | De s'élargir comme un objet de caoutchouc, | Pour, assouplie après ce système de songe, |apparaître au soleil, intacte, tout à coup […] Le serpent des couleurs accroche aux églantines | Sa cravate, ses gants, ses petites bottines; | Et de lui même sort un reptile têtu [...]". - In ink on very thin paper; both leaves with with strong defects to edges and somewhat browned; the letter with punched holes in the left margin (no loss to text); here and there some small notes from an old hand..

Ton amitié, ta bonté pour mon oeuvre sont toute ma récompense. Je t'embrasse, Jean" (transl.: "Forgive me for writing so badly & such silly things - this is the first letter allowed by the doctor and I have no strength. I cannot yet go from bed to table, but my darling, my poor, wonderful child, you will never understand that 'my silences' on your poems have no blame significance - that the slightest loop of one of your letters has already prestige for my eyes and my heart - that I approve of you in advance as did the admirers of Sarah Bernhardt [...] Since the day before yesterday I am out of danger - so the doctor doesn't even listen to me anymore and leaves me with a tulle of nerves around my left lung and atrocious regrets [...] Very happy about Hugnet being released from the service [...] My Max, I love you. Your friendship, your kindness for my work are all my reward. I embrace you, Jean")..

C'est celui qui me permettrait de montrer au jour tous les défauts que j'ai essayé de tirer de moi. J'aimerais presque toujours jouer des rôles qui ne sont pas pour moi... Les êtres anti-poëtiques sont les êtres qui veulent écrire le langage poëtique. Le cinéma permet de dépasser les frontières humaines, comme le prouve 'orphée' parce qu'il nous montre de qui l'écriture ou l'imagination nous offre de nous [...] La poësie est une haute élégance morale. Oui la poësie est lente et nous jugeons parfois trop vite. La lumière des poëtes est aussi longue à vous arriver que celle des étoiles [...] notre époque ou la poësie se cache de plus en plus et se montre sans cesse là où on ne croyait pas l'attendre. Le comble de la poësie c'est de n'avoir pas 'l'air poëtique'. L'artisanat est la poësie même. J'aime rendre réalisable l'irréalisable. Ce qui me donne le plus de courage mais hélas on ne fait pas ce qu'on veut. La définition de moi-même: le travail et le désir de plaire aux quelques personnes qui comptent à mes yeux" (transl.: "Poetry, if I dared to define it, would be elegance itself. It is therefore normal that it plays from the smallest to the largest thing - but large or small the thing becomes invisible memory when poetry inhabits it [...] I have noticed that I take the style of the character I play in life, not that I push myself in that direction to give myself the realism that is the basis of all poetry. It's the one that would allow me to show in the daylight all the flaws I tried to draw from myself. I would almost always like to play roles that are not for me [...] Anti-poetic beings are those who want to write the language of poetry. Cinema makes it possible to transcend human limits, as 'Orpheus' attests, showing us what writing and imagination have to offer us. [...] Poetry is a high moral elegance. Yes, poetry is slow and we sometimes judge too quickly. The light of the poets is as long to come to you as the light of the stars [...] our age in which poetry is increasingly hidden and is constantly showing itself where we thought it was not expected. The height of poetry is not to 'look poetic'. Craftsmanship is poetry itself. I like to make the unattainable realizable. That gives me the most courage, but alas, we do not do what we want. The definition of myself: work and the desire to please the few people that matter to me")..

I am one of the last writers whose mythology gradually forms as he exists. Legends, follies, inaccuracies. Advantage of legends; one burns a straw man. Legends surrounding men living in a glass house and recounting everything [...] - We hate the truth. Here we come to the heart of our subject. Poetry is scandalous because it is truth itself. Poets, children (Let [them] come to me, he knew what he did). Quote the Swan in majuscules, very proud. Pure poetry. Nonsense from Minos and Pasiphae. Poetry everywhere. Vinci's time. Believed poet, painter, etc. Alas, we've gone too far. Any photographer is a poet [...] Beware of serious men, laughter rends a man in two, reaching the soul, following the tree, the bird. False grandeur, grandeur laughs. For Max Ernst's admirable photo collages, montages, etc. Poetry of posters, of window displays, of street shops. Music Hall, fun fair for a dime, before, after. Dangerous poetry, poet's room, police raid. Any suspect. Poets come from a country where the language is neither alive nor dead, not yet born, heard. The somnambulist poet exploited by forces, he cannot mingle too much, else he ends up with evil. I do not believe in precursors but loneliness is still loneliness. Even in real poetry [...]". - This beautiful manuscript, complete with two elegant original drawings, is highly illustrative of Jean Cocteau's thinking, influences, and lifelong themes. It was acquired by the literary scholar Bill Chapman in 1954, when he was writing his doctoral thesis on "The Aesthetics of Jean Cocteau". The transcript with extensive notes, explaining Cocteau's allusions and identifying his sources, was prepared by Chapman, who corresponded with Cocteau during his research, as the three enclosed letters show. Referring to the manuscript, Cocteau thanks Chapman for being "the Champollion of his hieroglyphs" and discourages speculative interpretations: "Merci d'essayer d'être le Champollion de mes hieroglyphes. Trop de gens prennent encore des vocables hieroglyphiques des poètes pour de simples figures qu'ils interprètent à leur usage personnel. Soyez l'ami des Nombres et de notre algèbre. Haïssez la Fantaisie et dites vous que nous ne voulons pas être admirés mais être crus. Marco Polo fut appelé le menteur de Venise, parce qu'il témoignait [...]" (Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferret, 22 Feb. 1953). - In a letter from 27 March 1953, Cocteau affirms his position that "artistic and religious audacity are not incompatible", naming the Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain as an influence. In the final letter of the collection, Cocteau taunts the author Jean-Pierre Millecam as an "adorable egocentric" whose selfhood is the "star that governs his sky" (25 Feb. 1954). Apparently, Chapman had warned Cocteau of Millecam's character. - Deep tears to the spine and abrasions to the cardboard wrappers. The first two pages of the manuscript with the illustrations (on verso) are loose. Some pages show minor tears, two pages have further minor damage. Some browning. Two of the letters to Chapman show some tears and creasing..

J'arrive de la côte où je devais recommencer une prise et j'ai respiré le drame de Fréjus. (Le quai de Villefranche a disparu comme un domino tombe d'un table). Demain je tourne encore à Saint Maurice [...] et chaque fois que j'entre dans la salle du projection je pense à toi, amie auprès de moi pour la Belle et le Bête. Je suis profondément heureux de ton succès et de te savoir aimée par les simples - car plus on monte dans l'échelle sociale moins on rencontre de gentillesse [...]". - Small brownstain..