Jean Cocteau was a French poet, librettist, novelist, actor, film director, and painter. Some of his most important works include the poem "L’Ange Heurtebise" (1925); the play "Orphée" (1926); the novels "Les Enfants terribles" (1929) and "La Machine infernale" (1934); and his surrealistic motion pictures "Le Sang d’un poète" (1930) and "La Belle et la bête" (1946).
Background
Cocteau was born in Maisons-Laffitte, Yvelines, a town near Paris, to Georges Cocteau and his wife, Eugénie Lecomte; a socially prominent Parisian family. His father was a lawyer and amateur painter who committed suicide when Cocteau was nine. Thrown out of school as a boy, Cocteau was the problem child of a well-to-do Parisian family. After his father committed suicide, the boy grew closer to his mother, who appears as the dominant female character in much of his later work. As a child Cocteau also formed a lifelong passion for the theatre, which he described many times as being “the fever of crimson and gold.”
Education
From 1900 – 1904, Cocteau attended the Lycée Condorcet where he met and began a physical relationship with schoolmate Pierre Dargelos who would later reappear throughout Cocteau's oeuvre.
In his early twenties, Cocteau became associated with the writers Marcel Proust, André Gide, and Maurice Barrès. In 1912, he collaborated with Léon Bakst on Le Dieu bleu for the Ballets Russes.Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev persuaded Cocteau to write a scenario for a ballet, which resulted in Parade in 1917.In 1918 he met the French poet Raymond Radiguet. They collaborated extensively, socialized, and undertook many journeys and vacations together. Cocteau also got Radiguet exempted from military service.On 15 June 1926 Cocteau's play Orphée was staged in Paris.In 1929 one of his most celebrated and well known works, the novel Les Enfants terribles was published. In 1930 Cocteau made his first film The Blood of a Poet, publicly shown in 1932. In 1940, Le Bel Indifférent, Cocteau's play written for and starring Édith Piaf, was enormously successful.Cocteau's later years are mostly associated with his films. In 1945 Cocteau was one of several designers who created sets for the Théâtre de la Mode.
Achievements
Jean Cocteau was an enormously influential French artist and writer known as one of the major figures of Dada and Surrealism. With an oeuvre that spanned painting, novels, poetry, plays, and films, Cocteau established himself as a leading creative force in Paris.
Cocteau was supported throughout his recovery by his friend and correspondent, Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain. Under Maritain's influence Cocteau made a temporary return to the sacraments of the Catholic Church. He again returned to the Church later in life and undertook a number of religious art projects.
Views
Jean Cocteau denied being a Surrealist or being in any way attached to the movement. During the Nazi occupation of France, Cocteau's friend Arno Breker convinced him that Adolf Hitler was a pacifist and patron of the arts with France's best interests in mind. In his diary, Cocteau accused France of disrespect towards Hitler and speculated on the Führer's sexuality.
Quotations:
"Style is a simple way of saying complicated things."
"There is always a period when a man with a beard shaves it off. This period does not last. He returns headlong to his beard."
"An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original."
"I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul."
"Man seeks to escape himself in myth, and does so by any means at his disposal. Drugs, alcohol, or lies. Unable to withdraw into himself, he disguises himself. Lies and inaccuracy give him a few moments of comfort."
Membership
In 1955, Cocteau was made a member of the Académie française and The Royal Academy of Belgium. During his life, Cocteau was commander of the Legion of Honor, Member of the Mallarmé Academy, German Academy, American Academy, Mark Twain Academy, Honorary President of the Cannes Film Festival, Honorary President of the France-Hungary Association and President of the Jazz Academy and of the Academy of the Disc.
Académie française
,
France
1955
The Royal Academy of Belgium
1955
Personality
Jean Cocteau never hid his homosexuality. Frequently his work, either literary, graphic, or cinematographic, is pervaded with homosexual undertones, homoerotic imagery/symbolism or outright camp. Jean Cocteau saod about himself "I was never a handsome man. Youth has replaced my beauty. By nature, I'm neither cheerful nor gloomy. Although I can be too gloomy, or too joyful. In a conversation that stirs the soul, I happen to forget sorrows, infirmities, and myself, so I am intoxicated with words and thoughts. And the ability to forget grievances is so strong that sometimes unexpectedly, when I meet an enemy, I smile at him. His amazement acts on me like a cold shower and makes me wake up. And I do not know how to keep on. It surprises me that he still remembers the evil done by him, while I have already forgotten about him. Just exactly this innate inclination for evangelical virtue prevents me from dogmatism."
Quotes from others about the person
James P. Mc Nab:"Cocteau’s willingness and ability to turn his hand to the most disparate creative ventures, do not fit the stereotypical image of the priestlike — or Proust-like — writer single-mindedly sacrificing his life on the altar of an all-consuming art. But the best of his efforts, in each of the genres that he took up, enriched that genre".
Interests
Artists
Edouard de Max
Connections
Cocteau had affairs with Jean Le Roy, Raymond Radiguet, Jean Desbordes, Marcel Khill, and Panama Al Brown. In the 1930s, Cocteau is rumoured to have had a very brief affair with Princess Natalie Paley, the daughter of a Romanov Grand Duke and herself a sometime actress, model, and former wife of couturier Lucien Lelong. Cocteau's longest-lasting relationships were with French actors Jean Marais and Édouard Dermit, whom Cocteau formally adopted.
