manu/mldr-zoomed-100char-total-queries-documents

chunk_id stringlengths 3 9	chunk stringlengths 1 100
107_17	"poésie cinématographique".
107_18	Biography
107_19	Early life
107_20	Cocteau was born in Maisons-Laffitte, Yvelines, a town near Paris, to Georges Cocteau and his wife,
107_21	Eugénie Lecomte; a socially prominent Parisian family. His father, a lawyer and amateur painter,
107_22	committed suicide when Cocteau was nine. From 1900 to 1904, Cocteau attended the Lycée Condorcet
107_23	where he met and began a relationship with schoolmate Pierre Dargelos, who would reappear
107_24	throughout Cocteau's oeuvre. He left home at fifteen. He published his first volume of poems,
107_25	Aladdin's Lamp, at nineteen. Cocteau soon became known in Bohemian artistic circles as The
107_26	Frivolous Prince, the title of a volume he published at twenty-two. Edith Wharton described him as
107_27	a man "to whom every great line of poetry was a sunrise, every sunset the foundation of the
107_28	Heavenly City..."
107_29	Early career
107_30	In his early twenties, Cocteau became associated with the writers Marcel Proust, André Gide, and
107_31	Maurice Barrès. In 1912, he collaborated with Léon Bakst on Le Dieu bleu for the Ballets Russes;
107_32	the principal dancers being Tamara Karsavina and Vaslav Nijinsky. During World War I, Cocteau
107_33	served in the Red Cross as an ambulance driver. This was the period in which he met the poet
107_34	Guillaume Apollinaire, artists Pablo Picasso and Amedeo Modigliani, and numerous other writers and
107_35	artists with whom he later collaborated. Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev persuaded Cocteau to
107_36	write a scenario for a ballet, which resulted in Parade in 1917. It was produced by Diaghilev, with
107_37	sets by Picasso, the libretto by Apollinaire and the music by Erik Satie. "If it had not been for
107_38	Apollinaire in uniform," wrote Cocteau, "with his skull shaved, the scar on his temple and the
107_39	bandage around his head, women would have gouged our eyes out with hairpins."
107_40	An important exponent of avant-garde art, Cocteau had great influence on the work of others,
107_41	including a group of composers known as Les six. In the early twenties, he and other members of Les
107_42	six frequented a wildly popular bar named Le Boeuf sur le Toit, a name that Cocteau himself had a
107_43	hand in picking. The popularity was due in no small measure to the presence of Cocteau and his
107_44	friends.
107_45	Friendship with Raymond Radiguet
107_46	In 1918 he met the French poet Raymond Radiguet. They collaborated extensively, socialized, and
107_47	undertook many journeys and vacations together. Cocteau also got Radiguet exempted from military
107_48	service. Admiring of Radiguet's great literary talent, Cocteau promoted his friend's works in his
107_49	artistic circle and arranged for the publication by Grasset of Le Diable au corps (a largely
107_50	autobiographical story of an adulterous relationship between a married woman and a younger man),
107_51	exerting his influence to have the novel awarded the "Nouveau Monde" literary prize. Some
107_52	contemporaries and later commentators thought there might have been a romantic component to their
107_53	friendship. Cocteau himself was aware of this perception, and worked earnestly to dispel the notion
107_54	that their relationship was sexual in nature.
107_55	There is disagreement over Cocteau's reaction to Radiguet's sudden death in 1923, with some
107_56	claiming that it left him stunned, despondent and prey to opium addiction. Opponents of that
107_57	interpretation point out that he did not attend the funeral (he generally did not attend funerals)
107_58	and immediately left Paris with Diaghilev for a performance of Les noces (The Wedding) by the
107_59	Ballets Russes at Monte Carlo. Cocteau himself much later characterised his reaction as one of
107_60	"stupor and disgust." His opium addiction at the time, Cocteau said, was only coincidental, due to
107_61	a chance meeting with Louis Laloy, the administrator of the Monte Carlo Opera. Cocteau's opium use
107_62	and his efforts to stop profoundly changed his literary style. His most notable book, Les Enfants
107_63	Terribles, was written in a week during a strenuous opium weaning. In , he recounts the experience
107_64	of his recovery from opium addiction in 1929. His account, which includes vivid pen-and-ink
107_65	illustrations, alternates between his moment-to-moment experiences of drug withdrawal and his
107_66	current thoughts about people and events in his world. Cocteau was supported throughout his
107_67	recovery by his friend and correspondent, Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain. Under Maritain's
107_68	influence Cocteau made a temporary return to the sacraments of the Catholic Church. He again
107_69	returned to the Church later in life and undertook a number of religious art projects.
107_70	Further works
107_71	On 15 June 1926 Cocteau's play Orphée was staged in Paris. It was quickly followed by an exhibition
107_72	of drawings and "constructions" called Poésie plastique–objets, dessins. Cocteau wrote the libretto
107_73	for Igor Stravinsky's opera-oratorio Oedipus rex, which had its original performance in the Théâtre
107_74	Sarah Bernhardt in Paris on 30 May 1927. In 1929 one of his most celebrated and well known works,
107_75	the novel Les Enfants terribles was published.
107_76	In 1930 Cocteau made his first film The Blood of a Poet, publicly shown in 1932. Though now
107_77	generally accepted as a surrealist film, the surrealists themselves did not accept it as a truly
107_78	surrealist work. Although this is one of Cocteau's best known works, his 1930s are notable rather
107_79	for a number of stage plays, above all La Voix humaine and Les Parents terribles, which was a
107_80	popular success. His 1934 play La Machine infernale was Cocteau's stage version of the Oedipus
107_81	legend and is considered to be his greatest work for the theater. During this period Cocteau also
107_82	published two volumes of journalism, including Mon Premier Voyage: Tour du Monde en 80 jours, a
107_83	neo-Jules Verne around the world travel reportage he made for the newspaper Paris-Soir.
107_84	1940–1944
107_85	Biographer James S. Williams describes Cocteau's politics as "naturally Right-leaning." During the
107_86	Nazi occupation of France, he
107_87	was in a "round-table" of French and German intellectuals who met at the Georges V Hotel in Paris,
107_88	including Cocteau, the writers Ernst Jünger, Paul Morand and Henry Millon de Montherlant, the
107_89	publisher Gaston Gallimard and the Nazi legal scholar Carl Schmitt.
107_90	His friend Arno Breker convinced him that Adolf Hitler was a pacifist and patron of the arts with
107_91	France's best interests in mind. In his diary, Cocteau accused France of disrespect towards Hitler
107_92	and speculated on the Führer's sexuality. Cocteau effusively praised Breker's sculptures in an
107_93	article entitled 'Salut à Breker' published in 1942. This piece caused him to be arraigned on
107_94	charges of collaboration after the war, though he was cleared of any wrongdoing and had used his
107_95	contacts to his failed attempt to save friends such as Max Jacob.
107_96	In 1940, Le Bel Indifférent, Cocteau's play written for and starring Édith Piaf (who died the day
107_97	before Cocteau), was enormously successful.
107_98	Later years
107_99	Cocteau's later years are mostly associated with his films. Cocteau's films, most of which he both
107_100	wrote and directed, were particularly important in introducing the avant-garde into French cinema
107_101	and influenced to a certain degree the upcoming French New Wave genre.
107_102	Following The Blood of a Poet (1930), his best known films include Beauty and the Beast (1946), Les
107_103	Parents terribles (1948), and Orpheus (1949). His final film, Le Testament d'Orphée (The Testament
107_104	of Orpheus) (1960), featured appearances by Picasso and matador Luis Miguel Dominguín, along with
107_105	Yul Brynner, who also helped finance the film.
107_106	In 1945 Cocteau was one of several designers who created sets for the Théâtre de la Mode. He drew
107_107	inspiration from filmmaker René Clair while making Tribute to René Clair: I Married a Witch. The
107_108	maquette is described in his "Journal 1942–1945," in his entry for 12 February 1945:
107_109	In 1956 Cocteau decorated the Chapelle Saint-Pierre in Villefranche-sur-Mer with mural paintings.
107_110	The following year he also decorated the marriage hall at the Hôtel de Ville in Menton.
107_111	Private life
107_112	Jean Cocteau never hid his homosexuality. He was the author of the mildly homoerotic and
107_113	semi-autobiographical Le livre blanc (translated as The White Paper or The White Book), published
107_114	anonymously in 1928. He never repudiated its authorship and a later edition of the novel features
107_115	his foreword and drawings. The novel begins:
107_116	Frequently his work, either literary (Les enfants terribles), graphic (erotic drawings, book

107_17

"poésie cinématographique".

107_18

Biography

107_19

Early life

107_20

Cocteau was born in Maisons-Laffitte, Yvelines, a town near Paris, to Georges Cocteau and his wife,

107_21

Eugénie Lecomte; a socially prominent Parisian family. His father, a lawyer and amateur painter,

107_22

committed suicide when Cocteau was nine. From 1900 to 1904, Cocteau attended the Lycée Condorcet

107_23

where he met and began a relationship with schoolmate Pierre Dargelos, who would reappear

107_24

throughout Cocteau's oeuvre. He left home at fifteen. He published his first volume of poems,

107_25

Aladdin's Lamp, at nineteen. Cocteau soon became known in Bohemian artistic circles as The

107_26

Frivolous Prince, the title of a volume he published at twenty-two. Edith Wharton described him as

107_27

a man "to whom every great line of poetry was a sunrise, every sunset the foundation of the

107_28

Heavenly City..."

107_29

Early career

107_30

In his early twenties, Cocteau became associated with the writers Marcel Proust, André Gide, and

107_31

Maurice Barrès. In 1912, he collaborated with Léon Bakst on Le Dieu bleu for the Ballets Russes;

107_32

the principal dancers being Tamara Karsavina and Vaslav Nijinsky. During World War I, Cocteau

107_33

served in the Red Cross as an ambulance driver. This was the period in which he met the poet

107_34

Guillaume Apollinaire, artists Pablo Picasso and Amedeo Modigliani, and numerous other writers and

107_35

artists with whom he later collaborated. Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev persuaded Cocteau to

107_36

write a scenario for a ballet, which resulted in Parade in 1917. It was produced by Diaghilev, with

107_37

sets by Picasso, the libretto by Apollinaire and the music by Erik Satie. "If it had not been for

107_38

Apollinaire in uniform," wrote Cocteau, "with his skull shaved, the scar on his temple and the

107_39

bandage around his head, women would have gouged our eyes out with hairpins."

107_40

An important exponent of avant-garde art, Cocteau had great influence on the work of others,

107_41

including a group of composers known as Les six. In the early twenties, he and other members of Les

107_42

six frequented a wildly popular bar named Le Boeuf sur le Toit, a name that Cocteau himself had a

107_43

hand in picking. The popularity was due in no small measure to the presence of Cocteau and his

107_44

friends.

107_45

Friendship with Raymond Radiguet

107_46

In 1918 he met the French poet Raymond Radiguet. They collaborated extensively, socialized, and

107_47

undertook many journeys and vacations together. Cocteau also got Radiguet exempted from military

107_48

service. Admiring of Radiguet's great literary talent, Cocteau promoted his friend's works in his

107_49

artistic circle and arranged for the publication by Grasset of Le Diable au corps (a largely

107_50

autobiographical story of an adulterous relationship between a married woman and a younger man),

107_51

exerting his influence to have the novel awarded the "Nouveau Monde" literary prize. Some

107_52

contemporaries and later commentators thought there might have been a romantic component to their

107_53

friendship. Cocteau himself was aware of this perception, and worked earnestly to dispel the notion

107_54

that their relationship was sexual in nature.

107_55

There is disagreement over Cocteau's reaction to Radiguet's sudden death in 1923, with some

107_56

claiming that it left him stunned, despondent and prey to opium addiction. Opponents of that

107_57

interpretation point out that he did not attend the funeral (he generally did not attend funerals)

107_58

and immediately left Paris with Diaghilev for a performance of Les noces (The Wedding) by the

107_59

Ballets Russes at Monte Carlo. Cocteau himself much later characterised his reaction as one of

107_60

"stupor and disgust." His opium addiction at the time, Cocteau said, was only coincidental, due to

107_61

a chance meeting with Louis Laloy, the administrator of the Monte Carlo Opera. Cocteau's opium use

107_62

and his efforts to stop profoundly changed his literary style. His most notable book, Les Enfants

107_63

Terribles, was written in a week during a strenuous opium weaning. In , he recounts the experience

107_64

of his recovery from opium addiction in 1929. His account, which includes vivid pen-and-ink

107_65

illustrations, alternates between his moment-to-moment experiences of drug withdrawal and his

107_66

current thoughts about people and events in his world. Cocteau was supported throughout his

107_67

recovery by his friend and correspondent, Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain. Under Maritain's

107_68

influence Cocteau made a temporary return to the sacraments of the Catholic Church. He again

107_69

returned to the Church later in life and undertook a number of religious art projects.

107_70

Further works

107_71

On 15 June 1926 Cocteau's play Orphée was staged in Paris. It was quickly followed by an exhibition

107_72

of drawings and "constructions" called Poésie plastique–objets, dessins. Cocteau wrote the libretto

107_73

for Igor Stravinsky's opera-oratorio Oedipus rex, which had its original performance in the Théâtre

107_74

Sarah Bernhardt in Paris on 30 May 1927. In 1929 one of his most celebrated and well known works,

107_75

the novel Les Enfants terribles was published.

107_76

In 1930 Cocteau made his first film The Blood of a Poet, publicly shown in 1932. Though now

107_77

generally accepted as a surrealist film, the surrealists themselves did not accept it as a truly

107_78

surrealist work. Although this is one of Cocteau's best known works, his 1930s are notable rather

107_79

for a number of stage plays, above all La Voix humaine and Les Parents terribles, which was a

107_80

popular success. His 1934 play La Machine infernale was Cocteau's stage version of the Oedipus

107_81

legend and is considered to be his greatest work for the theater. During this period Cocteau also

107_82

published two volumes of journalism, including Mon Premier Voyage: Tour du Monde en 80 jours, a

107_83

neo-Jules Verne around the world travel reportage he made for the newspaper Paris-Soir.

107_84

1940–1944

107_85

Biographer James S. Williams describes Cocteau's politics as "naturally Right-leaning." During the

107_86

Nazi occupation of France, he

107_87

was in a "round-table" of French and German intellectuals who met at the Georges V Hotel in Paris,

107_88

including Cocteau, the writers Ernst Jünger, Paul Morand and Henry Millon de Montherlant, the

107_89

publisher Gaston Gallimard and the Nazi legal scholar Carl Schmitt.

107_90

His friend Arno Breker convinced him that Adolf Hitler was a pacifist and patron of the arts with

107_91

France's best interests in mind. In his diary, Cocteau accused France of disrespect towards Hitler

107_92

and speculated on the Führer's sexuality. Cocteau effusively praised Breker's sculptures in an

107_93

article entitled 'Salut à Breker' published in 1942. This piece caused him to be arraigned on

107_94

charges of collaboration after the war, though he was cleared of any wrongdoing and had used his

107_95

contacts to his failed attempt to save friends such as Max Jacob.

107_96

In 1940, Le Bel Indifférent, Cocteau's play written for and starring Édith Piaf (who died the day

107_97

before Cocteau), was enormously successful.

107_98

Later years

107_99

Cocteau's later years are mostly associated with his films. Cocteau's films, most of which he both

107_100

wrote and directed, were particularly important in introducing the avant-garde into French cinema

107_101

and influenced to a certain degree the upcoming French New Wave genre.

107_102

Following The Blood of a Poet (1930), his best known films include Beauty and the Beast (1946), Les

107_103

Parents terribles (1948), and Orpheus (1949). His final film, Le Testament d'Orphée (The Testament

107_104

of Orpheus) (1960), featured appearances by Picasso and matador Luis Miguel Dominguín, along with

107_105

Yul Brynner, who also helped finance the film.

107_106

In 1945 Cocteau was one of several designers who created sets for the Théâtre de la Mode. He drew

107_107

inspiration from filmmaker René Clair while making Tribute to René Clair: I Married a Witch. The

107_108

maquette is described in his "Journal 1942–1945," in his entry for 12 February 1945:

107_109

In 1956 Cocteau decorated the Chapelle Saint-Pierre in Villefranche-sur-Mer with mural paintings.

107_110

The following year he also decorated the marriage hall at the Hôtel de Ville in Menton.

107_111

Private life

107_112

Jean Cocteau never hid his homosexuality. He was the author of the mildly homoerotic and

107_113

semi-autobiographical Le livre blanc (translated as The White Paper or The White Book), published

107_114

anonymously in 1928. He never repudiated its authorship and a later edition of the novel features

107_115

his foreword and drawings. The novel begins:

107_116

Frequently his work, either literary (Les enfants terribles), graphic (erotic drawings, book