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

[sovay]

Adrienne Rich wrote fan poetry for it, did you know? "I Dream I'm the Death of Orpheus."

I had no idea! Excuse me while I find that.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

I first read the poem in a class where the professor just treated it as an Orpheus retelling and clearly had no idea it was related to the Cocteau version. Which I had only seen a few months earlier myself, so, nice going, serendipity! Like the professor, I would have loved the poem anyway; I love Orpheus retellings.

[moon-custafer.livejournal.com]

Ever seen Luc Besson's Subway? I'm inclined to believe it's one.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

No, so thank you for the rec. I will check it out.

[sovay]

Ever seen Luc Besson's Subway? I'm inclined to believe it's one.

No! Talk to me about it.

[moon-custafer.livejournal.com]

Several moments are pretty explicitly homages to A bout du souffle, but more than that, the film shares its predecessor's stylish, light-hearted existentialism.

Fred (Christophe Lambert) is a vague sort of criminal -- shortly before the start of the movie, trophy wife Helena (Isabelle Adjani) invited him to her birthday party after he helped her carry in some groceries, and he subsequently blew up the safe and stole a bunch of blackmail material; but it's never clear if he'd planned this from the start or just robbed the safe on anarchic impulse.

Now he's hiding out in the tunnels under the Paris metro, among a variety of subway workers, pickpockets, homeless people and street vendors. But he's less interested in his current predicament than he is in (a) starting a band (he's unable to sing himself, due to a childhood injury, but he longs to be the manager) and (b) scoring a date with the trophy wife, who comes down into the subway to look for him.

[sovay]

But he's less interested in his current predicament than he is in (a) starting a band (he's unable to sing himself, due to a childhood injury, but he longs to be the manager) and (b) scoring a date with the trophy wife, who comes down into the subway to look for him.

It has music and the underworld going for it. I will check it out.

[moon-custafer.livejournal.com]

It has music and the underworld going for it

Also Lambert's weird charm. Oh, and there's a a couple of flics nicknamed Batman and Robin.

[gwynnega]

I read the poem years before I saw the film. When I finally saw the movie, I thought, "Oh!"