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I love this movie so much

Just perfect...

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Jean Cocteau's masterpiece updates the story of Orpheus and Eurydice to a swinging Left Bank art colony, where the poet enlists the aid of Death herself (presented as the ultimate femme fatale) to help rescue his twice-dead wife from the Underworld. The film strikes a perfect balance between allegory and entertainment, combining the effortless depth of a true classic with some genuinely special effects, notably during the poet's journey through the looking glass into a limbo of lost souls. It certainly must rank among the most beautiful films ever made, and the lyrical texture is achieved without in any way compromising the element of fantasy. Cocteau even manages to inject some unexpected humor into the myth, after Orpheus wins the release of Eurydice from Hades on the condition that he never look at her again — not an easy task when trying to resume a healthy marital relationship.

It's too bad that Cocteau's filmography is so short. In this film as well as Beauty and the Beast, there is so much visual delight that it makes one ask for more. Now granted this is a strange period historically, the post-war fifties with the beatnik milieu. It seems a bit dated now, especially the bad boy motorcycle guys, and that satanic council, but it still creates a world of great interest. The whole thing about poetry trumping everything is really interesting. The man sitting in the old Rolls, listening to the strange events on the radio as his accident-victim wife is breathing her last, this obsessiveness of the artist at all costs, plays pretty well. There are a couple of weaknesses. The woman representing death is rather dull, her presence is black but not the kind of black that launches fear. Also, apparently there is a hierarchy of these beings and she is but one. Marais is handsome and unpredictable in some ways, but not very likable at all; he is user. The kids from the restaurant are interesting. It's hard to imagine so much blood lust. They feel he is responsible for the death of their friend and has become a sellout to his constituents. There are some loose ends as well, but, overall, it's a striking piece of film-making.

Jean Cocteau's heartbreaking story of love and longing is based on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice updated to 1950, when the film was made.Cocteau favorite Jean Marais plays the title role, Marie Dea plays his wife (Eurydice), and Maria Casares plays his death. Cocteau was a brilliant filmmaker and screenwriter, and he chose his subjects well. See the paragraph below* for a summary of the ancient myth on which the film is based.In 1950, Orpheus is a poet who has no following. He accepts a ride from a princess and listens to the radio in her car. During World War II, many people used broadcast radio to send coded messages to underground cohorts or spies in other lands. The princess's radio picks these up, and Orpheus transcribes them as his poetry, to great initial success. Things take a turn for the worse, though, as he's charged with plagiarism and the princess sends Eurydice to the underworld before Eurydice's time on earth was up. The princess is death, and her premature action leads to consternation in the underworld, giving Orpheus the opportunity to plead his case for the return of Eurydice.A poet of considerable talent himself, Cocteau uses "Orpheus" to examine creativity, bureaucracy, and remorse. In his youth, Orpheus was a national hero for his poetry, but he's older now, and the young poets are replacing him with blank pages - absurdity for its own sake is better than being thought absurd for what you've written. Cocteau was 60 when he wrote and directed this film, and he could look back on fame and its ephemerality with more equanimity than his character Orpheus could.Cocteau creates a remarkable array of special effects for Orpheus's trip below. Without computers and without much in the way of trick photography, Cocteau manages to persuade us that Orpheus can pass through mirrors and walk backwards through the underground passages. As with "Beauty and the Beast," the effects are the servant of their master, adding to the story, never overpowering it, never intruding. The princess's costumes are amazing. The costumes of the motorcyclists that are her outriders are fairly accurate renderings of motorcycle police uniforms, but they mirror her waist-cinched gowns very effectively. Watch the changes in her gown as she becomes infatuated with Orpheus and comes and goes through the mirror-portals. Cocteau was such a genius, as was his costumer, Marcel Escoffier.As in the myth, death is overcome by love. When death becomes passionate for Orpheus, she knows for the first time the meaning of love, longing, anger, and remorse. She acts for the first time on her own accord, to have Eurydice die so the princess can have Orpheus. The gods are taken aback that death would act without their authority, and they reverse her decision, returning Eurydice to life. Heurtebise, death's chauffeur, has fallen in love with Eurydice, but still he follows death's command and returns to the couple to life at the time of their greatest happiness. The sacrifice of the princess and her chauffeur (played by Francois Perier) is unexpected, and the resulting happiness of Orpheus and Eurydice is heartbreaking when witnessed through the Heurtebise's eyes. Georges Auric's score is spare, but majestic. You can hear some of it in this YouTube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91cniSsNwz8 and watch some of Cocteau's effects as Heurtebise takes Orpheus back to the real world. I would contrast Auric's use of percussion with Bernard Herrmann's snare drums in "Taxi Driver." In both films, the music is an integral part of the story.Cocteau comes as close as any soundfilm director to the beauty of cinematography in silent films. "Orpheus" is a beautiful film.*In Greek myth, Orpheus was the son of Apollo and Calliope (the most gifted of the nine Muses) and a gifted poet and musician. The Greeks rhapsodized about his powers with song and lyre, and I recommend reading some of their myths about Orpheus. When his wife, Eurydice, died, Orpheus played and sang so sadly that the gods wept and allowed him to go to the underworld and beg Hades for her return. His songful wish was granted (Hades himself being reduced to tears), but as ever there was a catch. Eurydice was to follow him, and if he turned to see if she were there she would be swept back to the underworld. (Do you trust your gods?) Of course he couldn't stand it and looked to see if she were there. (What is it about us mortals that we can't follow clear directions and not look back? Story at 11:00 by our senior correspondent, Lot's wife.) There are variations on the story (Greek myths changed with the times and needs of its peoples). In some stories she vanished forever, leaving him bereft. In others, the gods won Eurydice's partial release for six months - giving us spring and summer when she returns to the surface, then fall and winter upon her descent. It's a wonderful story and well worth searching out. And if you've ever been to The Orpheum, now you know the origin of the name.

The second film in the so-called Orphic Trilogy of Jean Cocteau, Orpheus, actually deals with the classic Orpheus and Eurydice myth, and is a better film than the predecessor film, The Blood Of A Poet, in the three film The Criterion Collection release, but it's by no means even close to a good film, much less a great one. Its special effects were long outdated when they were first tried in The Blood Of A Poet in 1930, for silent film masters like Buster Keaton did much more convincing work a decade earlier, while by the 1949 release of this film such 'special effects' were a joke- such as rubber gloves that quickly go onto Orpheus' hands in manifest reverse photography, or his tired trick of having a pool of water substitute for a mirror. On top of that, Cocteau's writing and narration of the film is downright laughable- almost an unwitting parody of the way poets act, the 'sets' are really cheesy and fifth rate, while the acting is so melodramatic one would think the actors were in a silent film that simply forgot to tell them it had sound now. Yes, it's that bad a bad film, although an improvement over the wretched The Blood Of A Poet. And as a poet who's actually written great poetry, believe me when I say skip this film, and avoid the poetasters and apologists who will declaim this film's supposed 'brilliance' or relevance to the creative impulse. It has none, unless one wants to believe that all great artists merely pose and do nothing at all in their supposed art form…. Jean Cocteau was a bad poet, and poseur of the worst sort, and this is the second bad film of his I've seen. I've seen only two so far. He mines every cliché on poetry and art imaginable, not to mention tossing off such execrable lines as, ''You'll live to regret those words,' 'You burn like ice,' 'A poet is a writer who writes but isn't a writer,'and 'Who can say what's poetry or not?' as if they were profound or somehow moving. Again, with just a little humor this film may have been a great parody, but the only funny moment in the whole film comes after the judges have sent Orpheus, Eurydice, and Heurtebise back to life and Death says 'If this were our former world, I'd say, 'Let's have a drink.' It's so ridiculous, inappropriate, and so meant to be 'deep' that it's absolutely hysterical, but in that Plan 9 From Outer Space sort of way. Yet, that is where some comic success could have been mined, but the actors are always so serious and melodramatic, rather than playing it as a spoof. The rest of the non-Underworld characters, however, seem like somnambulists. And yes, there's no mystery in the fact that the Underworld is a stand-in for the unconscious, which is how Death communicates to the interested Orpheus most effectively, and the whole not looking at Eurydice represents the desire for artists to always forge ahead, but, so what? Nothing of any depth is done with it.Is there anything that Cocteau innovates in this film? Does he even try to entertain? No, because the film is so self-indulgent and has such a precious sheen of artifice to it that one feels like one is watching Cocteau simply masturbate on screen- and that has nothing to do with the rumors that he and Marais, who would later star in Luchino Visconti's Le Notti Bianche (White Nights) were lovers. This film is sort of a look at what someone like Carl Theodor Dreyer may have done had he been less religiously oriented, and more centered on the clichés of art. In short, the worst of both worlds, to beg a clichés. Oh, how Cocteauvian of me!