ORPHEUS (1950)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological, sociological*

"No excess is absurd." --the Former Poet, defending a book of blank pages entitled "Nudity."

I've seen all three of Jean Cocteau's "Orpheus Trilogy" in the past, but as the first was not readily available, I'll hold forth on the second part, which is arguably the best-known and most critically celebrated. I'll note that Cocteau wrote and had performed a play with the same title back in 1926. Yet according to the Wiki writeup, the play doesn't share much with this movie but the basic reworking of tropes from the Greek myth of "the troubadour of Thrace," as an opening line calls the Greek singer. Clearly Cocteau had to rethink this project in terms of what could be accomplished on a certain cinematic budget, and what might impress viewers within the venue of postwar art-cinema.     

In 1950s Paris, Orpheus (Jean Marais) is not a singer but a poet, married to a faithful young wife, Eurydice (Marie Dea). Unlike the majority of poets in modern times, Orpheus is so well known for his works that at one point a bunch of female fans stop him on the street for his autograph. Yet, in a scene at a Parisian cafe, the young man confesses to an acquaintance-- an older, retired writer-- that he knows many people think him a poseur, and he seems to wonder if they may be right. It's during this conversation that the old fellow makes his rather Bataillean comment about "excess," though the concept is never elaborated.

A beautiful woman, called only "the Princess" (Maria Casares), arrives at the cafe with her entourage. Cegeste, a young member of that entourage, creates a row at the cafe, so that police are summoned. Trying to escape the law's long arm, Cegeste runs into the street and is killed by two black-clad motorcyclists who simply keep going. The French cops are apparently too flummoxed to notice how the Princess orders the dead guy loaded into her car by her chauffeur and then invites the fascinated Orpheus along for the ride.

Both in the car and at the Princess's mansion, the mysterious black-clad woman refuses to answer questions from Orpheus. At some point he's simply sent back to Paris, ignorant of his new role in the Princess's world. But the audience sees her true nature when she simply restores Cegeste to a semblance of life and consigns him to her world, the world of Death. To the extent that the Princess resembles anyone in the Orpheus myth, it would be Persephone. But it's a Queen of Death who moves freely in the living world, and who implicitly chooses Orpheus as a replacement for Cegeste.

 Orpheus, returning home, finds Eurydice more than a little concerned at his being absent all night. Also present are a Surete inspector, who questions Orpheus about the missing body of Cegeste, and Eurydice's sometime friend Aglaonice (Juliette Greco). The cop doesn't return, but Aglaonice becomes a familiar presence in the film. She's a member of some vague feminist group to which Eurydice once belonged (and thus a stand-in for the classical Maenads), and she clearly has a thing for Eurydice. The doting wife only wants her husband to love her and even discloses that she's pregnant with his child.  

 

By accident or design, the Princess' chauffeur Heurtebise makes certain that Orpheus is beguiled by the world of Death, making the curious arrangement to keep the Princess's car in Orpheus' garage. Orpheus starts hearing broadcasts of poetic phrases from the car's radio, and he's entranced by a level of poetic accomplishment foreign to him. Cocteau doesn't clarify if these are things the poet actually hears or just imagines hearing, but in any case, he does fall in love with the Princess. For that matter, Heurtebise becomes enamored of Eurydice, but she remains entirely fixated upon her husband.

Eurydice is killed, but Heurtebise tells Orpheus that Princess Death answers to an otherworldly tribunal, to whom Orpheus can make an appeal. The strongest visuals show the hero and his guide passing through mirrors into the death-realm, though the confrontation with the tribunal proves underwhelming, as the superiors of Death are just a trio of middle-aged men seated at a table. They rule that Eurydice's life was taken unfairly, and they send her back to the living world, but with the stipulation that Orpheus can never look at her again. This seems like an extreme take on the original myth, since in that narrative Orpheus only had to convey his restored love to the living world, at which point she would have been real again. Inevitably, the injunction is violated, and not even in line with iterations in which the male seeker simply fails because he wants to see his beloved again.

The conclusion shows Cocteau drifting away from the original story's tragic denouement. Once Orpheus returns to the real world, he's besieged not by Aglaonice's "League of Women" but by a crowd of poetry-lovers who for some reason think he's responsible for the death of Cegeste. Orpheus dies and goes back to the death-realm. However, the tribunal decides to release the young couple back to life, sans all memories of these experiences. The old guys do allow the young poet to bid farewell to his former love Princess Death before he forgets her, and before she pays an unspecified penalty for her actions. I don't know whether we should assume that the young couple manages to work out all problems thanks to this do-over. 

I think Cocteau meant in part to caution those vulnerable to the siren-song of poetry, possibly implying that poetry's "excesses" could separate them from the foundation of life itself. However, the death-realm loses some of its claim to transgressive fascination once it's been revealed that "Hades" is managed by three older guys keeping track of who's supposed to die and when. ORPHEUS doesn't quite rate the accolade of "masterpiece." However, despite its flaws it's still one of the most important art-films of the 20th century.