FILM | Jean Cocteau: The Orphic Trilogy | Le Sang d’un poète (Blood of a Poet)

Jean Cocteau: The Orphic Trilogy
July 5–26
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) was a poet, filmmaker, artist, journalist, dramatist, and designer, as well as a celebrity and provocateur. He was a creative force at the center of the Parisian avant-garde from before World War I, through the surrealist 1920s and 30s, and beyond. His films exemplify the surrealist movement in France. They are dizzy with fantasy, mythology, melodrama, and unhinged experimentation. Nowhere is this more true than in his so-called Orphic Trilogy—three films inspired by the figure of Orpheus, the poet and musician of ancient mythology. For today’s viewer, the trilogy opens doors to Cocteau’s incomparable poetic consciousness.

Le Sang d’un poète (Blood of a Poet)
Jean Cocteau, 1930, 55 min.
Saturdays, July 5, 12, and 19, 1 p.m.
A landmark of surrealist cinema, Cocteau’s first film attempts to reveal the inside of a poet’s mind and utilizes a panoply of trick effects and extraordinary juxtapositions to do so. Lee Miller portrays a statue that comes to life, opening the way to a world beyond. Enrique Rivero plays the poet.

Tickets are available at the museum (no surcharge) or through http://www.sfmoma.org/tickets (surcharge applies).

$5 general; free for SFMOMA members or with museum admission (requires a free ticket, which can be picked up in the Haas Atrium). Double features: films offered on the same date are included in one ticket.