“I am a lie that always tells the truth”
Jean Maurice Eugene Clement Cocteau was born at Maisons-la-fitte on July 5, 1889. On the day of is death at Milly on October 5, 1963, he had spent the morning addressing a large group of journalists, gathered to hear his tribute to Edith Piaf, who had died the previous day. The passing of these two legendary figures in such close proximity left all France in mourning.
Shortly after the death of Cocteau, his old friend Jean Bourgoint (who with his sister Jeanne had been the inspiration for Cocteau’s literary masterpiece Les Enfants Terribles) had cause to assess his feelings regarding his lost friend. He wrote: “His death, which even today I am unable fully to take in, has at least made it possible for me to sort out carefully a mass of memories … of impressions.” In doing so, Bourgoint composed what can be regarded as a deeply affecting and prophetic epitaph:
“It is not difficult to foresee that his purely poetic work, his image as a great poet, will as a result of his very disappearance undergo a kind of transfiguration and will be able to assume its true stature. On this plane, destiny, and the public have already begun, I think, to do him justice. But besides all those heaven-sent gifts that sparkled in him, he had humble and beautiful qualities as a man unsuspected by many of those who considered themselves his friends, and which historians (there will be plenty of those) will probably know nothing of.
A great poet is always an incalculable benefit to humanity, not only for his contemporaries but for the human race as such. But above and beyond that extraordinary radioactivity with which Jean illuminated our half-century (and the future), I truly think there is an activity of another order . . . I mean he had not only the genius of language and of images, he had also that of friendship. For people as for things, Jean was a kind of universal brother. Finally, his generosity in living the unique role he maintained for so long, a period difficult for the world of the intelligence, his so scrupulous exactitude with regard to his duty as a poet, were founded on an authentic strength of soul that was sensed by plain people, more immediately than by the intellectuals who surrounded him. In the best sense of the word, and in his very own way, Jean was eminently social … one can apply to him the words of Oscar Wilde: ‘I put my talent to my works and my genius into my life.’ ”
And so it was that history would come to place the “poetry” of Jean Cocteau into its true perspective; although it would certainly not surprise the man that he remains, even today, a figure of controversy. Of all the titles to which Jean Cocteau could have laid claim, he insisted upon only one – that of poet. In the great variety of his work there remains the unifying thread of ‘poésie’ – poésie de roman, poésie de théatre, poésie critique, poésie graphique, poésie cinématographique and for his sculpture, poésie plastique. Jean Cocteau explained: “I have been accused of jumping from branch to branch. Well, I have, but always in the same tree.” It was of course his beloved tree of poetry.
Cocteau’s entry into Parisian society as the poet of the salons was aided by his friend, the actor Edouard de Max in 1908. “This generous man was guilty of admiring my first poems and of helping to promote them. He saw beyond my follies, and sensed that I had some hidden strength.” Even at the tender age of twenty, Jean Cocteau exuded an affected personality that drew many admirers and alienated others. There was, as a result, considerable disdain from the established poets toward his early published works but without exception, a recognition of unquestionable gifts. Although unfair criticism could easily wound him, it was to his credit that Cocteau never allowed this to alter the path of his own poetic discoveries.
To penetrate the enormous range of his life’s work is to reveal that Jean Cocteau was the prophet of the new wave, an artist who could foresee the modernism of the future and indeed establish some of its legends. The rebellious youths depicted in Les Enfants Terribles, would be the prototype for the ‘teenagers’ of the fifties, predating Nicholas Ray’s Rebel Without a Cause by a generation. The motorcycled, leather-jacketed attendants to the Angel of Death in his film Orphée created a masculine image that would be repeated years later by others in numerous ‘bikie’ films including The Wild One.
Because of his outspoken admiration for the great poets, painters and composers of his time, regardless of attachment to any artistic clique, Cocteau was frequently accused of aligning himself with all that was fashionable in the arts. He courted the friendship of them all, which confused the establishment and surprised the avant-garde. But it was in 1909 that Jean Cocteau found himself confronted by what would become one of the greatest influences on his ‘career’ – les Ballets Russes de Serge Diaghilev.
The Russian dancers, choreographers and stage designers made a lasting impact not only on Paris, where they enjoyed their greatest triumphs, but on twentieth century art. It was not surprising that the young Cocteau was quick to make himself a part of their family. He literally fell in love with the Russians, attending countless performances and eventually allowed to watch “from the wings”. His drawings of the dancers, painters and composers of the Ballets Russes are more than caricatures – they are a lasting insight into a part of history, capturing the leading players with wit and precision.
His intimacy with Diaghilev’s troupe resulted in several commissions as well as self-imposed assignments for scenario and ideas for new works. Some never reached the stage and others as in the case of Le Dieu Bleu, with choreography by Fokine and music by Reynaldo Hahn, did not remain long in the repertoire after the premiere season. Significantly, it was Jean Cocteau who introduced Pablo Picasso into Diaghilev’s circle, by the remarkable feat of persuading the artist to agree to design sets and costumes for the ballet Parade. Parade, with scenario by Cocteau, choreography by Leonide Massine and original score by Erik Satie (who remained a life long hero of the poet) was Cocteau’s greatest triumph at the Ballets Russes.
His concept for the first réaliste ballet was alarmingly new, causing somewhat of a celebrated scandal at its premiere. Jean was delighted that at last he had managed to astound Diaghilev with a truly innovative work from the assembled talents of a historically fascinating quartet of creators. Parade, like Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps before it, was recognised as a significant milestone in the performing arts, altering perceptions of dance and music for all time.
In 1919 Cocteau was to meet the second great influence on his life – Raymond Radiguet. “One day my mother’s old housekeeper said to me ‘There’s someone waiting to see you – a child with a cane’. That was Raymond – he never left me again.”
Cocteau saw in Radiguet not only the brilliant writer he was destined to become but also the flesh and blood embodiment of a certain masculine type to which Cocteau had always been drawn and which “would always be my downfall”. He had entered a kind of pygmalion phase when, seeing himself as the older man, the wiser poet, he would encourage and nurture youthful talent. After Radiguet’s death, of typhoid fever at the age of twenty in 1923, Cocteau would ‘discover’ more young ‘poets’ although not until the actor Jean Marais would he meet another of lasting importance with whom he could share not .only his life but his work.
“Radiguet’s death had operated on me without chloroform.” Cocteau took to his bed and mourned the loss of young Raymond. His highly publicised bout with opium came as a result of this loss and although Cocteau was to undergo several ‘cures’, he never did cease smoking entirely. Later when he came to live with Jean Marais, writing several plays for him as well as films, Cocteau managed to control his addiction, mostly due to Marais’ steadfast disapproval. “To preach to the opium addict,” wrote Cocteau, “is to tell Tristan: Kill Isolde. You will feel much better afterwards.”
Two of Cocteau’s most enduring masterpieces of poetic writing were written during the time of his relationship with Raymond Radiguet – Thomas L’Imposteur and le Cap de Bonne Esperance. After Radiguet’s death there was still a profusion of writings; from the slim volume Opium to the play La Voix Humaine. Of the many plays and stories written by Jean Cocteau in the latter part of his life; Les Enfants Terribles, L’Aigle avec deux Têtes, Les Parents Terribles, Les Chevaliers de la Table Ronde, Orphée – several became films.
Cocteau’s first film was Le Sang d’un Poète, conceived whilst still in the ‘disintoxication’ clinic. He used a crew of professionals and a cast of amateurs to create that first ‘poème’ cinematographic’. Although Cocteau wrote the screenplays for some of his works for transferal to the screen, he directed only four films himself – Le Sang d’un Poète, La Belle et le Bête, Orphée and Le Testament d’Orphée. It is revealing that in many of Cocteau’s dramas, the characters are drawn from mythology; Orpheus and Eurydice, Galahad and the Knights of the Round Table, Merlin and of course Oedipus and Jocasta.
“I do nothing but follow the rhythm of fables,” wrote Cocteau, “which are always transformed by the teller … I always advise the copying of a model. It is impossible to copy exactly; new blood is always infused, and it is by that that we can judge the poet.”
The modernisation of the characters of legend is today a completely acceptable device in theatre and in films. It is the workings of a genius that first transferred these mythical figures into recognisable modern characters, such as the portrayal of Eurydice as a pretty but nagging housewife or Death as a very beautiful contemporary woman wearing surgical rubber gloves enabling her to pass through mirrors. Even today the mystery of these images is hypnotic, the juxtaposition of a story of legend with a modern setting still dazzling.
Cocteau’s books and journals abound with little gems of insight and memorable philosophies: “What men call genius rarely includes intelligence. Now, as I see it, intelligence never spoils anything. A masterpiece for the critics will be a work that compares, that has the look of a masterpiece. Yet a masterpiece cannot look like a masterpiece. It is of necessity lame, lacking, full of faults, for it is the triumph of errors and the consecration of its faults which will make it into a masterpiece.”
In his lifetime Cocteau had known or befriended some of the more luminous players in the drama of twentieth century art: Gertrude Stein, Colette, Andre Gide, Pablo Picasso, Igor Stravinsky, Coco Chanel, even Marcel Proust. He never pretended that his own star was in the same galaxy and yet perhaps as Bourgoint has suggested, destiny has done him justice, and given Jean Cocteau his rightful place in the order of things.
“I am probably the most notorious poet in France and the most unknown. Sometimes this saddens me – fame intimidates, and I want to arouse only love … realising that my visibility, created out of absurd legends, protects my invisibility, envelops it in gleaming armor that is proof against any blows … Naturally I am speaking to the youth of a time when I shall no longer be here in flesh and blood when my blood will be mixed up with ink … The face of my writing is my true face … Understand me. It is not so difficult as it seems at first.”