The French surrealist Jean Cocteau’s 1930 film, Blood of a Poet ― in which a young artist finds himself in a world where, among other oddities, gravity is reversed and guns shoot backwards ― is an at-once patently absurd and entertaining work of art.
Shot by Cocteau with financial help from the notable French patron, Charles, Vicomte de Noailles, the movie is a visual smorgasbord of thematic references and stylistic quirks. Narcissus of Greek legend appears in its mirrors; hints of Victorian Mesmerism are glimpsed in its whirling wheels; and, in its boy-like angels, Jungian archetypes play their roles. Packed with narrative non sequiturs, Blood of a Poet is a slow, if often-giddy, ride. Crucially, it also got the 40-year-old Cocteau noticed.
Cocteau, who died 50 years ago this week (Oct. 11, 1963), released the movie at a time when Surrealism ― an inherently playful movement which sought to express the unity of the conscious and unconscious through art ― had taken firm root in Europe. Initially, as with so many Surrealist works, the movie and the director himself received a mixed reception stateside. (Variety, for instance, called Blood a “hopeless mess.”)
But as he continued to produce work, Cocteau came to be seen as a significant cultural player by, as LIFE magazine once put it, “U.S. highbrows.”
In 1949, LIFE commissioned photographer Philippe Halsman to produce a photo essay on Cocteau, in order to try and illustrate what happens “inside a poet’s mind.” The results were delightful.
Article from:
http://life.time.com/culture/jean-cocteau-by-philippe-halsman-playful-portraits-of-a-surrealist/#1
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