Jean Cocteau Addresses the Year 2000

Overview

In August 1963, just a couple of months before his death, Jean Cocteau made one last short film. The film comprises one still and highly sober shot of Cocteau facing the camera head-on to address the youth of the future. Once recorded, this spoken message for the 21st century was sealed and stored with the understanding that it would be opened only in the year 2000. As it turned out, it was discovered and exhumed a few years shy of that date. Where in The Testament of Orpheus Cocteau portrays himself as a living anachronism, a lonesome classical modernist loitering in space-time while lost in the spectral light of his memories, here he acknowledges explicitly the irony of his phantom-like state. By the time the viewer sees this image, he, J. C., our saviour Poet, will long be dead.

Details

Status

Released

Release date

June 12, 1962

Original language

French

Spoken languages

French

Countries

France

Cast

Jean Cocteau

Director

Jean Cocteau

Writer

Jean Cocteau

Budget

Not recorded

Revenue

Not recorded

IMDb

tt1537031