Paris in July does not just include books. Contributions on your Paris vacation, your favourite meal or restaurant, French movies, music, art, Parisian history and more are very welcome. On the home page for the event you will inevitably discover perhaps new to you authors, movies as well as recipes to send you if you are lucky to Paris or at least the kitchen.
Orphée (Orpheus) - Directed by Jean Cocteau- 1950 - 135 Minutes - A Paris in July Movie (available on YouTube)
Jean Cocteau (born July 5, 1889, Maisons-Laffitte, near Paris, France—died October 11, 1963, Milly-la-Forêt, near Paris) was a French poet, librettist, novelist, actor, film director, and painter. Some of his most important works include the poem L’Ange Heurtebise (1925; “The Angel Heurtebise”); the play Orphée (1926; Orpheus); the novels Les Enfants terribles (1929; “The Incorrigible Children”; Eng. trans. Children of the Game or The Holy Terrors) and La Machine infernale (1934; The Infernal Machine); and his surrealistic motion pictures Le Sang d’un poète (1930; The Blood of a Poet) and La Belle et la bête (1946; Beauty and the Beast).
In Greek mythology, Orpheus is a talented musician who travels to the underworld to bring back his dead wife, Eurydice. Upon entering the realm of the undead, the mournful music that Orpheus sings and plucks from his lyre convinces Pluto, the God of the underworld, to allow him to return to earth with Eurydice on the condition that he does not turn back until he has left the underworld. Failing to keep this promise, Orpheus turns to glance at Eurydice and loses her forever. The centrepiece of a trilogy that begins with Le Sang d’un Poète (The Blood of a Poet, 1930) and concludes with Le Testament d’Orphée (Testament of Orpheus, 1960), Jean Cocteau’s 1950 imagining of the tragedy reframes Orpheus as the title character, Orphée (Jean Marais) – a famous poet who is both loved and reviled by the Parisian avant-garde in equal measure. Like Orpheus, he will lose his Eurydice (Maria Déa) in death to a shadowy otherworld that is not ruled by Gods but governed by an emotionless tribunal, inhabited by an enigmatic woman known as the Princess (María Casares), who is also a manifestation of death.
I hope to watch at least one more film directed by Cocteau this month
