When we watched Orpheus in class, I thought it was kinda meh. Good not great... Weird reverse rubber glove shots? huh???
After the reading and the class discussion though, I saw many more viewpoints and sort of understood what the point of the movie was a little better. The thing that really interested me in the reading was the whole idea of poets/homosexuals having like this sixth sense for hidden symbols and signals and such. I really saw that in the movie alot and felt like Orpheus was special because he was a poet and being a poet means that he sees the world differently and more aware of the strange symbols everywhere. Going along with this, I really loved Orpheus' line when he is defining what a poet is..."someone who writes who isnt a writer..." I was just like, YEA, nailed it! I felt like that line caught the contrast and irony of the contradictory nature of this film. It just sounded like something Cocteau would say about artists and poets, where it doesnt really make sense and yet you know almost what he means in a cool and sorta cryptic way.
One point that came up in the class discussion that got me thinking was the point about Orpheus' falling in love with death meaning some brush with suicidal tendencies. I thought this was really wierd though because to me just the opposite seems true. Orpheus isnt topping himself because his life sucks, but is rather sort of learning to accept and be comfortable with the idea of death rather than hating and fearing it and trying to escape it or wish it was a dream. In the beginning, his life is in shambles after meeting his Death because he is scared of what ever is happening to/around him. By the end though, he has learned that Death is not something to be feared but rather something to embrace and accept. Once he has done this, he is able to live happily and go on living with Eurydice. This also plays into the contradictory and ironic, because when he runs from death he cant escape it, but when he loves and understands death he is free.
I could be wrong though, thats just what that topic got me thinking about.
What do you guys think?
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I can see where people would get the whole suicial aspect. I think that Orpheus is going through an existential crisis and Death is seducing him down a dangerous path. The relationship/obssession that he shares with the embodied death may actually symbolize his desire to die because he has no idea what his life is worth.
ReplyDeleteThis makes me think that the complete change in character at the end can be explained. When death chooses to "reject" Orpheus and send him back to wife this symbolizes Orpheus' need to accept his life for what it is. He doesn't want to die, he doesn't need to die, he needs to live because whatever is keeping him down isn't that bad.
I may be stretching.
I think that idea about Orpheus learning to accept and be comfortable with his death is interesting. The way I saw it was that he is such a narcissist that he was even in love with his Death. He wanted to be around it constantly. I thought he was embracing and accepting it because it was so attractive to him. Which is another idea i thought of: Cocteau purposely made Lady Death a really attractive woman, when he could have made death in any form. He didn't do a typical grim reaper, or a man, but an attractive woman.
ReplyDeleteI really liked that line from the movie also and found it very thought provoking. I also find it interesting that you think he is comfortable with his death. I think he more fascinated that it picked him than anything else and that it gives him a certain ego. He feels so great that he can attract death to him as well as life (Eurydice). He feels like the powerful one and is drawn in to all of these different dynamics that are going on around him. Death to him is one step up from his life and his wife and he almost feels special that she is interested in him at all. He relates to her because maybe he feels that they are both misunderstood?
ReplyDeleteI feel that Orpheus falling in love with Death was an obsession within itself as well as accepting his own death as an inevitability. This obsession with death can be symbolized in many ways: physically (Orpheus entering the underworld), emotionally/mentally (his quality of poetry going down) or symbolically (homosexually was not widely accepted in society, save for the art community). The reading captures that essence of symbolism of homosexuality in the film.
ReplyDeleteWhat I really like about this post and this discussion is that none of you are trying to reduce Cocteau to a simple formula. You're letting him, and the artistic message, be complex and a little beyond reach--which is very appropriate for him.
ReplyDelete>>It just sounded like something Cocteau would say about artists and poets, where it doesnt really make sense and yet you know almost what he means in a cool and sorta cryptic way.
Yes. I think this is dead on. Surrealism, and his kind of dream logic, isn't meant to be directly accessible--it's meant to work on the imagination.
I agree that Orpheus's thing with death isn't necessarily suicidal, and I really like the idea that it's an extension of his narcissism. I think it also might have to do with his larger argument about poets, and their predisposition to different modes of experience. Poetry is a kind of death, in a way--giving over the conscious, waking self to a dangerous sort of consciousness that demands attention and speaks in ways that don't make sense to the waking world.