Les miroirs feraient bien de réfléchir davantage

[sovay]

My favorite character in Cocteau's Orphée (1949) was never the poet himself or even María Casares' spellbinding Princesse with her face like harsh white marble and her black leather gloves, but Heurtebise, Death's chauffeur, the sympathetic but not sad-sack love-suicide who falls for Eurydice while his mistress is coming through the mirror every night to watch Orphée sleep. I watched the movie with lesser_celery this afternoon for the first time since September 2009 (when it screened at the Brattle, my first time seeing it on a big screen, and Michael McAfee told me afterward about an upcoming show he thought I'd like) and I still like him. I can recognize the actor now from other roles: the risky lover in Le notti di Cabiria (1957), the superintendant of police in Le samouraï (1967). I don't remember him from Z (1969), but I admit I was distracted by Jean-Louis Trintignant. François Périer was just my age when the film was made. Heurtebise identifies himself as a student. It took John to point out to me that he's not much to look at, especially against the hard bronze Narcissus-planes of Jean Marais: but his frustration with the poet is the audience's, practically dragging Orphée by the hand into the blasted ruins of the underworld to rescue a woman who doesn't deserve to be a casualty of the mutual obsession of Orphée and his Death. (John also confirms that I am not groundlessly slash-goggling Eurydice and Aglaonice. I feel vaguely justified about that.) I think I find the numbers station of the underworld even more poignant now, knowing how many fewer remain in our world. The simplest of special effects in this movie is still my favorite, time running backward with the film—all but Heurtebise, Vergil-guiding Orphée out of death. Into ordinariness. Death and her aide turn away into whatever comes beyond the courts of hell. I noticed the first time around that the opening titles are constellations; the one-word end title, too. Even if I have to map them myself, I like the idea of Casares and Périer in the stars.

My poem "Cuneiform Toast" has been accepted by Mythic Delirium. It takes its name from the earrings by elisem; its subject is Ereškigal's prime minister, the courier of the Mesopotamian underworld, Namtar. (His mother's name is Mardula'anki, by the way.) The connection is not lost on me. I have never been able to figure out why this archetype, but I'm glad I finally got a tribute to this particular figuration out of my head.

I was turned down tonight by a housing situation I had rather desperately wanted. I wrote this post anyway, because I had been planning on it since I left the house. Then I had to rewrite it, because the internet ate it: the evening has been like that. I suspect I will stop talking about my apartment searches in public; it serves no purpose and feels superstitiously like asking to be hurt (and I can't find that amazing bag B. gave me my Hittite sun disk wrapped in, covered in more stopper-blue eyes than I'd ever seen on plastic before). Comments on this subject not desired. Have a really neat article by Gemma Files on the ways in which media criticism has changed even within her professional lifetime. cucumberseed has asked me to write about monsters and John for something fireproof. I am going to try to sleep, or shower, or something.

Comments

[kenjari.livejournal.com]

I've always wanted to see Cocteau's Orphee, as I am rather fond of the opera Philip Glass wrote to go with La belle et al bete.

[sovay]

I've always wanted to see Cocteau's Orphee, as I am rather fond of the opera Philip Glass wrote to go with La belle et al bete.

It's much less a retelling of the myth than it takes the myth as a flashpoint about which it elaborates on love and art and liminality and its underworld is one of the best I have ever seen onscreen; I don't know that it is my favorite film of this material, but I've seen it three times now and I love it dearly. I've never heard the opera. Does it use Cocteau as the libretto, or what?

[kenjari.livejournal.com]

Glass uses the movie entire as libretto and, for lack of a better word, set. The singers are synching to the actors on screen, but it doesn't ever come across as mere dubbing. It truly does feel like an opera but one in which the film takes the place of the stage. The music is lush and a lot more lively and varied than a lot of Glass' other work. Glass has said that one of the drivers for doing this was to make an opera that could be easily toured to places that did not have the resources for conventional opera - all you need for Glass' La Bell et la Bete is projection and a modest space, because there are are only a 4-6 singers (they each sing multiple parts) and a small ensemble. I saw it in New London in 1995.
A little googling shows that Glass did also write an opera based on Cocteau's Orphee, but it uses the screenplay (cut down some) as the libretto and is conventionally staged. Coincidentally, it premiered in Cambridge at ART in 1993. I have not heard it, but if it's on Naxos, I will give it a listen.

[sovay]

Glass uses the movie entire as libretto and, for lack of a better word, set.

That's the strangest application of the Rocky Horror shadowcast I've ever heard. I may have to see this.

[kenjari.livejournal.com]

The 2003 criterion edition has the opera as an alternate soundtrack. SF Opera is doing it in May, but I can't find evidence of any nearer performances.

[sovay]

The 2003 criterion edition has the opera as an alternate soundtrack.

. . . You know, rushthatspeaks and I saw that on the Criterion disc. We thought it was some kind of extra. I own the DVD. That solves that problem.