Orpheus/Orphée

Director: Jean Cocteau; With Jean Marais, Maria Déa, Maria Cesarès, Juliette Greco

95 min, France 1950

Jean Cocteau films an eternal myth in contemporary Paris with his lover at the time, Jean Marais, in the leading role: Orpheus' attempt to free his wife Euridice from the underworld. The stylistically memorable black-and-white film captivates with technical tricks, deeply moving close-ups and the attempt to visualize the intermediate realm between life and death.

The young chansonette Juliet Gréco can be seen here in her first important film role. She plays the leader, based on the mythological figure of Anglaonike, of a troupe of bacchantes conceived by Cocteau as emphatically feminist. Orpheus was awarded the Grand Prix at the Venice Film Festival.