Thank you for your reply, Alec. Actually, for me, Cocteau set the bar so high with Orpheus, that when I finally saw Testament of Orpheus, I was pretty disappointed. I only watched it once as a result. As I recall, he got carried away with the run-film-backwards trick used so effectively in Orpheus and Beauty and the Beast.
Watched his L'Aigle à deux têtes [The Eagle with Two Heads] recently and it's the one I hardly ever see and was blown away. It's a kind of summing up.
Actually when watching that, I was reminded that there's humour in Cocteau's art that we shouldn't forget.
Note to Bill should he see this: I saw Be-Bop Deluxe ca. 1978 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, US(A). A fond memory. Cheap Trick opened. I don't think they went over very well. But I liked them. I had their first album and, at that point, all of yours.
Dang! I went looking for the clipping of the concert review I know I saved and it wasn't where I thought it would be. If I ever find it, I'd be happy to scan it and e-mail it in to the Nelsonica fellow.
I just found it, neatly folded into my Air Age Anthology CD case! I'll plan to scan and send it in, but, unfortunately, the reviewer was not especially impressed. The review ran Tues., Oct 4, 1977 in the Minneapolis Tribune.
"Among the misconceptions which have been written about Orphée, I still see Heurtebise described as an angel and the Princess as Death. In the film, there is no Death and no angel. There can be none. Heurtebise is a young Death serving in one of the numerous sub-orders of Death, and the Princess is no more Death than an air hostess is an angel. I never touch on dogmas. The region that I depict is a border on life, a no man's land where one hovers between life and death."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpheus_(film)
MarÃa Casares plays the Princess.
She published her autobiography, Résidente privilégiée (Privileged Resident) in 1980, in which she described her 16-year affair with Albert Camus.[2][3][4][5][6] The couple never married,[7] but their extensive correspondence, first published in France in late 2017,[8] lasted from 1944 to almost the end of Camus' life.[9] She starred in a number of Albert Camus's plays and often threatened to end their stormy affair over his refusal to leave Francine Faure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar%C3%ADa_Casares
https://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/Orpheus/81D294A792D50133
It’s a film that every time I watch it I feel like it’s the first time watching it Actually all of Cocteau‘s films are like that.
Note to Bill should he see this: I saw Be-Bop Deluxe ca. 1978 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, US(A). A fond memory. Cheap Trick opened. I don't think they went over very well. But I liked them. I had their first album and, at that point, all of yours.