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The plays included in this collection are:
1. Orphe
2. Antigone
3. Intimate Relations
4. The Holy Terror
5. The Eagle with Two Heads ... Read more

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Jean Cocteau (1890-1963) was his contemporary Marcel Duchamp’s exact opposite: while Duchamp retreated from creating, Cocteau embraced art in all its forms--music, opera, ballet, and film as well as theatre, novels, graphics, and poetry--while never becoming attached to one "school" (especially not the Surrealists). Angel-weight rather than heavyweight, Cocteau may seem more glitter than gold. But he deserves serious reconsideration, not only for his own art and poetry but also for his role in the process and criticism of the art and media around him, and not least as a self-aware homosexual. He had a finger in every artistic pie in Paris in its modernist golden age.

This is the first comprehensive study of the man and his work since his death in 1963. It accompanies the Jean Cocteau retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in September 2003, traveling in 2004 to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. This stunningly illustrated English edition of Cocteau sur le fil du siecle makes available important essays by seventeen French authors, including some who knew Cocteau personally. They illuminatingly reassess his life and art, notably his early career. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Awesome book!
Ha Ha. I found it on the sale rack at Barnes and Nobles for $1!!!!

It's a great book but 40 bucks? Good Lord Man, don't you know I'm poor. ... Read more

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A photographer once remarked to André Maurois, "If I were to take a picture of a village wedding, Jean Cocteau would appear between the bride and groom." And he was right; Cocteau was photographed everywhere, by everyone, in all guises and poses. Cecil Beaton posed him smoking an opium pipe, Lucien Clergue caught him in the romantic ruins of Arles where Cocteau was shooting Orphée, Arnold Newman shot him in Paris, and Philippe Halsman in New York. Cocteau possessed, of course, a modern genius for self-promotion, but he also cared deeply about his own art and the art of a technique he embraced with passion throughout his lifetime photography. The fifth title in Godine's Imago Mundi series, Jean Cocteau: The Mirror and the Mask provides a visually compelling photographic essay celebrating a central figure of this century. ... Read more

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Film-maker, novelist, artist, playwright, entrepreneur, Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) regarded himself above all as a poet. No matter how diverse or prolific his creativity, he saw poetry as central to his vision of all the arts. And it was as a poet that he began his career, publishing "Le Cap de Bonne-Esperance" in 1919, and it was in this vocation that he published "Le Requiem" in 1962, shortly before his death. While Cocteau's prose has found sympathetic translators, no substantial collection of his poetry exists in English. Drawing on poems from all stages of Cocteau's life, Jeremy Reed has rectified this deficiency by translating a generous selection of some of Cocteau's most durable poems. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Amazing!
Jean Cocteau's impressionistic poetry is simply amazing.It's in both English and French (and there's some famous erotic drawings by another artist included, which I found to be a little inappropriate) and contains about 20 poems.I loved every poem in the book and found modern allusions to them in bands like The Cure.I strongly recommend this to someone with a love for intellectual poetry. ... Read more

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Until his death in 1963, Jean Cocteau held a unique place in French culture. To commemorate his friends and contemporaries, Cocteau wrote intimate portraits of celebrities from the fields of his many talents - theatre, cinema, art, ballet, and literature. Gathered in this collection, his descriptions illustrate everything that is accessible, sympathetic, memorable, durable, all-pervading, or dazzling about them. Ranging from moving and atmospheric to hilarious, it is in these portraits that the essence of Cocteau's own work can be found. ... Read more