Orpheus

In his introduction to the movie script of Orpheus, Jean Cocteau says, "in this film there is neither symbol nor thesis... It is a realistic film which, through the camera, puts into the work more truth than truth; that truth which Goethe contrasts to reality." As the title hints, the plot--if one can say there is one--draws from the Orpheus and Eurydice myth. Cocteau, however, skillfully shrouds this legend with the story of a poet's struggle to become immortal.

Orpheus is unique because the actors display a very limited range of emotion and expression. Jean Marais, as Orpheus, a Parisian poet, rarely raises his voice and never moves quickly. Yet his rugged features and stature, by the slightest change of movement, convey grief, irony, and happiness. This physical containment, especially in the scenes where he moves in "the other world" creates a breath-taking tension. The characters of Death (a women) and the chauffer enter this world they see one another in the rear-view mirror of the Rolls Royce in the same constrained manner.

In contrast to this slow tempo is the terrifying speed of two motorcyclists, agents of Death. When Orpheus has abandoned his pregnant wife for Death, an ominous roar is heard and suddenly, Eurydice is struck down by the cyclists. Meanwhile, Orpheus is listening to obscure poetry over the radio in the Rolls, tragically ignorant of what has happened.

The only relief in this drama occurs when Orpheus and Eurydice return to this world on the condition that they never look at each other (they cannot sleep in the same room). But the humor is dampened as they see one-another in the rear-view mirror of the Rolls and Eurydice vanishes.

Adroit and imaginative use of the camera also contributes to the excellence of the film. A shot from inside Death's car shows the flecting landscape as ghostly gray and white. And as people pass through mirrors, the glass yields like water or shatters then mends again. And, after Orpheus, tries to follow Death through a looking-glass and fails, his reflection fades into a puddle of water in a sand dune.

Cocteau does not indicate any purpose in his story, although roughly it concerns the casting off of worldly love and gaining of final resurrection. No further description could explain why Orpheus has such a powerful effect. As Death says to Orpheus, "you search too much to understand what happens, dear man. It is a grave mistake."

The last two showing of Orpheus will be tonight.