Jean Cocteau

Jean Cocteau , born the July 5th 1889 with Houses-Laffitte, dead the October 11th 1963 with Milly-the-Forest, is a Poète French, artist with the multiple talents, Graphiste, Dessinateur, author of theater, but also Cinéaste. He was pupil with the Lycée Condorcet and was elected with the French Academy in 1955. He counts among the artists who marked their time.

It côtoya majority of the artists and those which made the artistic life of its time. He had a durable relation as well in love as professional with the actor Jean Marais. He was also a personal friend of the queen Elisabeth of Belgium, great impassioned culture and of music.

Youths

Jean Cocteau was born in Houses-Laffitte in a middle-class family from Paris. His/her father, lawyer and painter amateur, committed suicide when Cocteau was ten years old. As of the fifteen years age, Cocteau leaves the family cocoon. It expresses only little interest for the studies and will not obtain its baccalaureat. In spite of its literary works and its artistic talents, Cocteau insisted on the fact that it was before a whole poet and that any work was poetic. It publishes its first book of poems, the Lamp of Aladdin , at 19 years. Cocteau became known then in the artistic circles gipsies like the “frivolous prince”. It is under this title that it will publish in 21 years, in 1910, its second collection of poems. Edith Wharton describes it like a man for whom " each broad outline of poetry was a sunrise, each to lay down sun the base of the marvellous city… ".

In the years 1920, Cocteau joins Marcel Proust, André Gide, and Maurice Barrès. It is also fascinated by the Master of the Russian Ballet, Serge de Diaghilev. From its collaboration with the Russian artist is born Parade , ballet produced in 1917 by Diaghilev, with decorations of Pablo Picasso and a music composed by Erik Satie. This work will inspire in Apollinaire the neologism of Surréalisme, taken again then by André Breton and Philippe Soupault for the creation of the cultural movement which one knows. Cocteau has a great influence on the work of the others, in the group even made up by his/her friends: " Six ".

Friendship then love with Raymond Radiguet

In 1918, it meets the poet Raymond Radiguet. The two collaborators undertook many voyages together, Cocteau being exempted military service. In admiration in front of the great literary work of Radiguet, Cocteau promoted work of his/her friend in his artistic circle and was arranged to make publish by Grasset the Devil with the body (a mainly autobiographical history on the adulterous relationship between a married woman and a younger man), exerting its influence to collect the literary prize of the " New Monde" for the novel.

The reaction of Cocteau to the sudden death of Radiguet in 1923 creates a dissension with certain close relations who declare that it left it despaired, discouraged and in prey with opium. Cocteau, adds one, did not even attend the burial. But Cocteau generally does not attend the burials. The author then leaves at once Paris with Diaghilev for a representation of " the Weddings " by the Russian Ballet in Monte Carlo. Cocteau itself qualified much later its reaction like a " reaction of stupor and dégoût". Its leaning for opium at this time, Cocteau explains it as a simple chance related to the fortuitous connection which it had maintained with Louis Laloy, the director of the opera of Monte Carlo. The dependence of Cocteau towards opium and its efforts to stop radically changed its literary model. Its most notable book, the Enfant terribles , was written in one week at the time of its hard weaning.

It was suggested that the friendship of Cocteau with Radiguet has in fact be a love affair, intense and often stormy, but no proof makes it possible to justify it.

Maturity

In the years 1930, Cocteau would have had a connection with the princess Nathalie Paley, the daughter-in-law of a Romanov, itself modiste, actress or model and former wife of the dressmaker Lucien Lelong. She fell pregnant, but the pregnancy cannot be concluded its, which plunged Cocteau and Paley in a deep distress. Cocteau maintained then a sentimental relation long life with two French actors, Jean Marais and Edouard Dermit, this last officially adopted by Cocteau. One also supposes that Cocteau would have maintained a relation with Panama Al Brown, a boxer of which it dealt with the career at a given time.

In 1940, Beautiful Indifferent the , part of Cocteau written for Edith Piaf, was an enormous success. He also worked with Picasso on several projects, was the friend of the major part of the European Community of the artists and fought against his leaning for the Opium during most of his life of adult. Whereas it was openly homosexual, it had some short and complicated adventures with women. Its work conceals many criticisms against the homophobie.

The films of Cocteau, of which he wrote and directed the major part, were particularly important insofar as they introduced the Surréalisme into the French cinema and influenced, to a certain extent, the French kind of the New wave.

Some immense successes made pass for always Cocteau to the posterity: the Enfant terribles (Romance), terrible Parents (play of 1929), the Beautiful one and the Animal (film of 1946). In 1960, the artist turns the Will of Orphée with the financial aid of François Truffaut.

By learning the death from his/her friend Edith Piaf, Cocteau is taken of a crisis of smothering. He will succumb a few hours later of an heart attack in his residence of Milly-the-Forest the October 11th 1963 to 74 years. He is buried in the Chapelle Saint-Blaise-of-Simple with Milly-the-Forest in the the Essonne. On his tomb, one can read the following epitaph: I remain with you .

Rewards and distinctions

In 1955, Cocteau was member of the French Academy and the royal Académie of Belgium.

In its life, Cocteau was commander of the Legion of Honor, member of the Mallarmé Academy, the German Academy, American Academy, the Mark Twain Academy, honorary president of the Festival of film of Cannes, honorary president of France-Hungary Association, President of the Academy of the jazz and the Academy of the Disc.

Literary works

; Poetries
  • 1909 the Lamp of Aladdin
  • 1910 the frivolous Prince
  • 1912 Dance of Sophocle
  • 1919 Ode in Picasso - the Cape of Good Hope
  • 1920 Stopover . Poetries (1917-1920)
  • 1922 Vocabulary
  • 1923 the Rose of François - Plainsong
  • 1925 Cry written
  • 1926 the Angel Heurtebise
  • 1927 Opera
  • 1934 Mythology
  • 1939 Enigmas
  • 1941 Allegories
  • 1945 Léone
  • 1946 the Crucifixion
  • 1948 Poems
  • 1952 the Figure seven - Tablecloth of Catalan (in collaboration with Georges Hugnet)
  • 1953 Laces of eternity - Appoggiaturas
  • 1954 Clearly-obscure
  • 1958 Paraprosodies
  • 1961 Spanish Ceremonial of the Phoenix - the Part of failures
  • 1962 the Requiem
  • 1968 Announcement (posthumous)
; Novels
  • 1919 Potomak (final edition: 1924)
  • 1923 the Wide variation - Thomas impostor
  • 1928 White paper
  • 1929 the Enfant terribles
  • 1940 End of Potomak
; Theater
  • 1917 Parade , Ballet (music of Erik Satie, choreography of Léonide Massine)
  • 1921 Grooms of the tower Eiffel (music of Georges Auric, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc and German Tailleferre)
  • 1922 Antigone
  • 1924 Romeo and Juliette
  • 1934 the Explosive device
  • 1936 the School of the widows
  • 1937 Oedipus-king . Knights of the Roundtable
  • 1938 terrible Parents
  • 1940 Superstars
  • 1941 the Typewriter
  • 1943 Renaud and Armide . the Wife wrongfully suspected
  • 1944 the Eagle with two heads
  • 1948 Theater I and II
  • 1960 New theater of pocket
  • 1962 Impromptu of the Palais Royal
  • 1971 the misunderstood Gendarme (posthumous, in collaboration with Raymond Radiguet)
; Poetry and critical
  • 1918 the Cock and the Harlequin
  • 1920 Freehand
  • 1922 the Professional secrecy
  • 1926 the Call to order - Letter in Jacques Maritain
  • 1930 Opium
  • 1932 Test of indirect criticism
  • 1935 Portrait-Memory
  • 1937 My First voyage (Round the world tour in 80 days)
  • 1943 Greco
  • 1947 the Hearth of the artists - the Difficulty in being
  • 1949 Letters with the Americans - Queens of France
  • 1951 Jean Marsh - Talks around the cinematograph (with Andre Fraigneau)
  • 1952 alive Gide
  • 1953 Newspaper of an unknown . Step of a poet
  • 1955 Colette (speech of reception to the royal Academy of Belgium) - Speech of reception to the French Academy
  • 1956 Speeches of Oxford
  • 1957 Talks on the museum of Dresden (with Louis Aragon) - the Bullfight of May 1st
  • 1959 Poetry criticizes I
  • 1960 Poetry criticizes II
  • 1962 the Umbilical cord
  • 1963 the Countess of Noailles, yes and not
  • 1964 Portrait memory (posthumous; discussion with Roger Stephan)
  • 1965 Talks with Andre Fraigneau (posthumous)
  • 1973 Jean Cocteau by Jean Cocteau (posthumous; discussions with William Fielfield)
  • 1973 Of the cinematograph (posthumous). Talks on the cinematograph (posthumous)
; Poetry of journalism
  • 1935-1938 (posthumous)

Cinematographic works

; Realizer ; Scenario writer ; Director of the photography

Graphic poetries

  • 1924 : Drawings
  • 1925: the Mystery of Jean the bird-catcher
  • 1926: Private hospital
  • 1929: 25 drawings of a sleeper
  • 1935: Sixty drawings for Enfant terribles
  • 1941: Drawings in margin of the text of the Knights of the Roundtable
  • 1948: Funny of household
  • 1957: the Vault Saint-Pierre , Villefranche-sur-Mer
  • 1958: the Room of the marriages , town hall of Chin - the Vault Saint-Pierre (lithographies)
  • 1959: Gondol of dead the
  • 1960: Vault Saint-Blaise-of-Simple , Milly-the-Forest
  • Years 1960: Stained glasses of the Saint-Maximin Church of Metz

Newspapers

  • 1946 the Beautiful one and the Animal (newspaper of film)
  • 1949 Maalesh (newspaper of a round of theater)
  • 1983 Preterite (posthumous)
  • 1989 Newspaper, 1942-1945

Postal stamp

Works on Jean Cocteau

  • Claude Arnaud, Jean Cocteau
  • Marie Jemma-Jejcic, Jean Cocteau or the enigma of the desire. What the poet learns to the psychoanalyst , Editions Eras, 2006,304 p. - ISBN 2-7492-0615-4
  • Monique Lange, Cocteau Prince without kingdom
  • André Fraigneau, Cocteau
  • Jean Marais, Histoires of my life
  • Jean Marais, the Inconceivable Jean Cocteau
  • Nicole Vaillant Dubus, With you, Jean Cocteau: poet of Europe . Colomars: Mélis editor, coll “Letter with… ”, 2003. 32 p., 21 cm. - ISBN 2-914333-51-X
  • Ahmed Youssef, Cocteau the Egyptian, the Eastern temptation of Jean Cocteau , Monaco, Editions of the Rock, 2001,192p.

Opinion

  • Saïd Taghmaoui (1998): It with the grace, cynicism and intelligence to draw the things towards him without breaking them, while froissant them; like the Arab philosophers. It makes a loop on itself, more quickly than the others, and then a loop for the pleasure of narguer those which it exceeded.

Museum

More than 1.500 works representing 7,5 million euros were offered to the town of Menton by the American collector Severin Wunderman. The city which shelters already the Musée Jean Cocteau account to open a museum dedicated to the artist. He drew the walls of the villa Santo Sospir where he spent his holidays to Saint-Jean-Cape-Ferrat as well as the Vault of the sailors of Villefranche-sur-Mer.

See too

Related articles

External bonds

  • Official site

  • Exposure “On the wire of the century”
  • Videoartworld: The Masters Series (Documentary and video online. Public domain)
  • teaching Cocteau CMEF
  • Course
  • Cocteau and the Russian Ballet
  • immortal the
  • Enter to Jean Cocteau
  • a biography
  • Cocteau by [[Jean-Pierre Rosnay]]
  • Breton against Cocteau
  • Radiguet and Cocteau
  • Filmographie
  • Panoramique of the Notre Dame Vault of anglophone Jerusalem
  • Forum
  • Cocteau
  • Cocteau
  • plastic work
  • Généalogie Cocteau

Random links:Johns-Hopkins university | List publications by editors - Dargaud - F | Prime Minister of Ivory Coast | Remi-Pierre Paquin | Jean-Marc Leveratto | Eric_Clapton