#68 - Orpheus

And we're back! - (Wife is gone for a week after Nov 7th so expect a flurry - especially in light of the announcement that Filmstruck is shutting down - SOB!)

#68 was a much better experience for me than the last one - Orpheus isn't just a modern telling, but it's a re-imaging of the myth and an exploration of the art and immortality of poetry.   Jean Cocteau does his usual stellar job here of creating some magical film effects, and there's even a feature about that on this Blu-Ray/DVD/Stream

In this film, Orpheus is a modern day Elvis/Poet, who is enamored with a woman he meets at the site of a traffic accident, who actually turns out to be one of the incarnations of death - in this story, he is not merely going back for Eurydice, but for Death herself

The film is a great art-house film - there is one line that stuck out to me - at one point Orpheus says he is a poet - someone corrects him and says he's a writer - and Orpheus makes the remark that "A poet is a writer who doesn't write"  - In a sense, I think that's what Jean is also saying with film - it is poetry that isn't written - I'm looking forward to the 3rd and final film in the trilogy as a result of this powerful work, and that really says something about it's impact.  Cocteau is about poetry, and as discussed previously,

Jean Marais FEELS like an actor I should know - but his only other stint so far in the blog was Beauty and the Beast - he and Cocteau were very close, and he was in almost all his films - (close in more ways than one - according to IMDB they were lovers, but Marais was also married during some of those years) - He just has that rugged movie handsomeness. 

My last observation is that if the opening scenes at the Poet's Cafe in Paris don't make you want to find a time machine and go back to 1950's Bohemian Paris, you have no soul ;)

At this point I can kinda see why this one is still in print and readily available - I might find myself picking this up during the next flash sale at Barnes and Nobles.

up next - the final film in the trilogy