The Blood of a Poet
| The Blood of a Poet | |
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DVD cover art
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| Directed by | Jean Cocteau |
| Written by | Jean Cocteau |
| Starring |
Lee Miller Pauline Carton Odette Talazacuez Feral Benga Enrique Riveros Jean Desbordes |
| Music by | Georges Auric |
| Cinematography | Georges Périnal |
| Distributed by | The Criterion Collection |
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Release date
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Running time
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55 min. |
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
The Blood of a Poet (French: Le Sang d'un Poète) (1930) is an avant-garde film directed by Jean Cocteau and financed by Charles de Noailles. Photographer Lee Miller made her only film appearance in this movie, which features an appearance by the famed aerialist Barbette. It is the first part of the Orphic Trilogy, which is continued in Orphée (1950) and concludes with Testament of Orpheus (1960).
The Blood of a Poet is divided into four sections. In section one, an artist sketches a face and is startled when its mouth starts moving. He rubs out the mouth, only to discover that it has transferred to the palm of his hand. After experimenting with the hand for a while and falling asleep, the artist awakens and places the mouth over the mouth of a female statue.
In section two, the statue speaks to the artist, cajoling him into passing through a mirror. The mirror links to a hotel and the artist peers through several keyholes, witnessing such people as an opium smoker and a hermaphrodite. The artist is handed a gun and a disembodied voice instructs him how to shoot himself in the head. He shoots himself but does not die. The artist cries out that he has seen enough and returns through the mirror. He smashes the statue with a mallet.
In the third section, some students are having a snowball fight. An older boy throws a snowball at a younger boy, but the snowball turns out to be a chunk of marble. The young boy dies from the impact.
In the final section, a card shark plays a game with a woman on a table set up over the body of the dead boy. A theatre party looks on. The card shark extracts an Ace of Hearts from the dead boy's breast pocket. The boy's guardian angel appears and absorbs the dead boy. He also removes the Ace of Hearts from the card shark's hand and retreats up a flight of stairs and through a door. Realizing he has lost, the card shark commits suicide as the theatre party applauds. A female player transforms into the formerly smashed statue and walks off through the snow, leaving no footprints. In the film's final moments the statue is shown with an ox, a globe, and a lyre.
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