Review of The Blood of a Poet (1932) by Thomas M — 04 Jul 2011
Jean Cocteau rejected the idea that this, his 1930 episodic film, was surrealism, and I am inclined to agree with him. It is too much projected from Cocteau's passion and too purposefully constructed to belong to that movement, of which the most honored act was thought to be a random, blind-folded shooting in a public place.
The film's non-conforming images come from Cocteau's own ideas of beauty, a series of thoughts which contemplate what it is to live and to suffer for one's own artistic endeavors. Enrico Rivero was chosen to play the poet, and this was one of the director's key artistic decisions.
He has, as Cocteau puts it, a "dispassionate appearance", yet he also displays both a childlike curiosity and a mature impatience, resulting in a performance that is beautifully unsure. Certainly this is prose on film, strange and moving passages that revel in the inexplainable essence of the expression of art.
This review of The Blood of a Poet (1932) was written by Thomas M on 04 Jul 2011.
The Blood of a Poet has generally received very positive reviews.
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