Day 68: Testament of Orpheus (1960)

With “Testament of Orpheus,” Jean Cocteau rounds out his Orphic Trilogy with a story that is one of the most personal a director has ever made- his own. Though hardly a biography picture, “Testament” is instead a visual representation, almost a study, of the avant garde director’s career by way of his own journey through a surrealist world of symbols in search to for the favor of Pallas Athene- the Goddess of Wisdom.

At the beginning of “Testament,” Cocteau, known only as “The Poet” throughout the film, time travels back and forth through the ages until finally meeting a Professor of science, who has created a bullet that travels faster than light. Believing that, if he is shot with the bullet, he will finally be able to break the space-time continuum and return to the real world, the Poet has the Professor shoot him and, sure enough, the Poet is thrown into his own surrealist world.

While traveling in this world, the Poet is met by Cégeste, a character from his acclaimed film “Orpheus,” who leads him, like Virgil guiding Dante in “The Divine Comedy,” through a land that embodies aspects of all art, but with symbols and characters specific to the Poet’s own story. As he continues his journey, the Poet is soon lead by Cégeste to none other than the Princess and her Chauffer, also characters from “Orpheus,” who head of a committee in charge of accusing the Poet with a terrible act- innocence. From here, the poet must continue on his way and hope that, in the end, he will find the wisdom and relief he is searching for through this surreal land.

Once again, Jean Cocteau gives us another film in “Testament of Orpheus” that is as hard to decipher and explain as his previous two installments in the Orphic Trilogy, but, unlike the other two, we are introduced quickly to the concept that this will centered on the famous director and his art and, even in the most perplexing of scenes, we can at least use this bit of information to help analyze what we are witnessing. For example, when the Poet begins to draw a flower that sits in front of him, all he puts on the canvas is a caricature of his own face. Befuddled by this, he turns to Cégeste, who explains that all art created by an artist is simply a representation of themselves- a fact even the least artistic of viewers can understand.

Besides a journey through Cocteau’s artistic life, “Testament” also acts as a visual dirge for Cocteau’s career as a filmmaker, as this, from its inception, was planned as his final piece of work in the artform. In his book “Two Screenplays: The Blood of a Poet and the Testament of Orpheus,” Cocteau said about both his Orphic trilogy and his reasons for quitting film, “My first attempt of this kind was The Blood of a Poet, and that old film is still puzzling people everywhere. Exegesis, which is a Muse, is still examining it, and the psychoanalyst is discovering what the shadowy part of me unknowingly expressed long ago. I later orchestrated this method with the film Orpheus. But, looking back I am convinced that there is quite a considerable public who wish to go beyond the plot and do not try to flee the obscure. On the contrary, they are able to find their way unafraid or else with an adorable childish fear. This is why I am abandoning the career of filmmaker. Technical progress has now brought that career within everyone’s reach. The progress that interests me is of a different, interior kind. And I flatter myself that, thanks to my own long-ago research, I am no longer the only archeologist of my darkness.”

An innovator of surrealism, Jean Cocteau will always go down as one of the most interesting and visionary figures in cinema and his final film is certainly a testament, not of Orpheus, but of his defining artistic skill.

To learn more about “Testament of Orpheus,” check out Criterion’s page here.

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