Jean Cocteau: influences, peers and legacy

Every connection with its receipt

Jean Cocteau moved between poetry, theater, drawing and cinema as if they were one room with several doors, and his films carry the ballet stages, fairy tales and Greek myths of his other lives into them. This mix traces the Paris avant-garde that formed him, the collaborators who built his images, and the filmmakers who still work in his mirror.

The Kynda mix for Jean Cocteau

• Key Influence · Le Sacre du printemps by Igor Stravinsky (1913). Cocteau was in the orbit of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes when the Rite premiered in Paris, and Diaghilev's famous challenge to him — to astonish — became his lifelong creed. He later wrote on Stravinsky in Le Coq et l'Arlequin and collaborated with him on the opera-oratorio Oedipus Rex, supplying the French text. The scandal of 1913 taught him that spectacle, shock and myth could be fused into a single machine.
• Influencia Obscura · Locus Solus by Raymond Roussel (1914). Roussel, the reclusive millionaire whose novels describe impossible machines built by procedural wordplay, was a cult figure for the Paris avant-garde before Breton canonised him. His catalogue of glass tanks, tableaux and automata that enact myths prefigures the device-logic of Cocteau's cinema: mirrors as doors, statues that speak, gloves that transport. A hidden current in French poetic fantasy that Cocteau swam in.
• Local Roots · Entr'acte by René Clair (1924). Made for the Ballets Suédois in the same small Paris world Cocteau inhabited, from a Picabia scenario with a Satie score, Entr'acte is the moment French avant-garde painting and ballet spilled into film. Cocteau's own first film came six years later from the same impulse and the same patron class — Le Sang d'un poète was financed by the Vicomte de Noailles, who also bankrolled Buñuel. Same scene, same money, same shock.
• Beyond the Medium · Oedipus Rex by Sophocles (429 BC). Cocteau rewrote the Theban material twice, as the play La Machine infernale and as the Latin text for Stravinsky's oratorio, and his whole cinema runs on Greek myth retooled as modern machinery. Sophocles gave him the image of fate as a mechanism built to crush a mortal, which he restated as the hotel-room bureaucracy of death in Orphée. Antiquity enters his films wearing a leather motorcycle jacket.
• Peer · Nadja by André Breton (1928). Breton was Cocteau's great antagonist: the Surrealist pope who barred him from the movement and mocked him as a fashionable amateur, while pursuing the same territory of chance, dream and the uncanny city. Nadja's Paris of coincidences and found photographs is the rival version of the poetic marvellous Cocteau was filming. Reading them together maps the fault line of the French avant-garde between the wars.
• From the Canon · Le Sang d'un poète by Jean Cocteau (1930). His first film, financed by the Vicomte de Noailles, is the laboratory for everything after: the mirror used as a door, the mouth transplanted to a hand, the statue that comes alive, the poet's room as a stage for his own myth. Made without industry training and assembled by instinct, it establishes the central Cocteau proposition that cinema is simply poetry written with light and bodies rather than words.
• Key Collaborator · Les Enfants terribles by Jean-Pierre Melville (1950). Cocteau chose the young, independent Melville to film his novel, co-wrote the adaptation, lent his own narration and reportedly haunted the shoot. The partnership gave Melville his breakthrough and gave Cocteau a colder, more clinical rendering of his hothouse siblings than he would have made himself. It is also a hinge between the pre-war avant-garde and the New Wave that worshipped Melville.
• Legacy · Peau d'âne by Jacques Demy (1970). Demy's Perrault fairy tale, with its blue-and-red courts, talking creatures and Deneuve in donkey skin, is explicit homage to Cocteau's enchanted cinema, slow-motion effects and all; Jean Marais, Cocteau's Beast and Orpheus, plays the king. Demy repeatedly acknowledged Cocteau as the filmmaker who proved French cinema could be unashamed magic, and carried that licence into the colour musical.

What influenced Jean Cocteau

• Alcools by Guillaume Apollinaire (1913). Alcools (Guillaume Apollinaire) — titan for Jean Cocteau “This was the period in which he met the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, artists Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani and Bernard Buffet, and numerous other writers and artists with whom he later collaborated.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Jacques Maritain. The article explicitly attributes Cocteau’s religious return to Maritain’s influence. “Under Maritain's influence, Cocteau made a temporary return to the sacraments of the Catholic Church . With Maritain, he founded the literary magazine Le Roseau d'Or .” (Wikipedia)
• Le Sacre du printemps by Igor Stravinsky (1913). Le Sacre du printemps (Igor Stravinsky) — titan for Jean Cocteau “Cocteau wrote the libretto for Igor Stravinsky's opera-oratorio Oedipus rex, which had its original performance in the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt in Paris on 30 May 1927.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Parade by Erik Satie (1917). Parade (Erik Satie) — titan for Jean Cocteau “It was produced by Diaghilev, with sets by Picasso, the libretto by Apollinaire and the music by Erik Satie.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Locus Solus by Raymond Roussel (1914). Locus Solus (Raymond Roussel) — ghost for Jean Cocteau (openlibrary.org)
• Les Vampires by Louis Feuillade (1915). Les Vampires (Louis Feuillade) — ghost for Jean Cocteau (themoviedb.org)
• Oedipus Rex by Sophocles. Oedipus Rex (Sophocles) — culture for Jean Cocteau (wikidata.org)
• La Belle et la Bête by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont (1756). La Belle et la Bête (Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont) — culture for Jean Cocteau (openlibrary.org)
• Illustrations for Dante's Divine Comedy by Gustave Doré (1861). Illustrations for Dante's Divine Comedy (Gustave Doré) — culture for Jean Cocteau

Peers and kindred spirits

• Elsa Schiaparelli (1890). Establishes collaboration between Schiaparelli and Cocteau. (also via Le Sang d'un poète, La Belle et la Bête) “Schiaparelli famously collaborated with Salvador Dalí and Jean Cocteau.” (Wikipedia)
• Maria Lani (1905). Cocteau supported Lani’s portrait project and encouraged artists to participate. (also via The Blood of a Poet) “She befriended Jean Cocteau, who enthusiastically endorsed the project and with his encouragement, 59 artists made portraits of her.” (Wikipedia)
• Coco Chanel (1883). Chanel designed costumes for Cocteau's theatre production Oedipe Rex. (also via Le Train Bleu) “Chanel collaborated with Jean Cocteau on his theatre piece Oedipe Rex” (Wikipedia)
• Jean-Pierre Melville (1917). Melville recalls his working relationship with Cocteau during the adaptation of Les Enfants terribles. (also via Les Enfants terribles) “Nos rapports étaient très très bons, aussi longtemps que je n’ai pas tourné ; très très mauvais, à partir du moment où j’ai commencé à tourner.” (Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée)
• Pablo Picasso. Picasso appeared in Cocteau's film Testament of Orpheus. (also via Le Sang d'un poète) “Picasso made a few film appearances, always as himself, including a cameo in Jean Cocteau 's Testament of Orpheus (1960).” (Wikipedia)
• Sergei Diaghilev. Cocteau wrote the libretto for Diaghilev's production of Parade. “Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev persuaded Cocteau to write a scenario for a ballet, which resulted in Parade in 1917. It was produced by Diaghilev , with sets by Picasso, the libretto by Apollinaire and the music by Erik Satie .” (Wikipedia)
• Roland Petit. The works list connects Cocteau’s ballet Le Jeune Homme et la Mort with Petit. “Le poète Jean Cocteau explique comment ce " dialogue gesticulé" qu'il avait inventé, c'était au chorégraphe Roland Petit qu'il avait confié de le "traduire [...] dans cette langue de la danse dont la syntaxe" lui manquait.” (France Culture)
• Francis Poulenc. The works list credits Poulenc as a collaborator on Le Gendarme incompris. “Cher ami, avec La voix humaine de votre ami Cocteau, tout change, l’époque, le genre, le sujet. Cocteau était bien vivant quand vous avez composé sur son opéra.” (INA, En scènes)
• Académie française. Cocteau became a member of the Académie française in 1955. “J’ai été élu coup sur coup à l’Académie royale de Belgique et à l’Académie française. Je me suis donc trouvé en face du problème d’écrire deux discours qui ne se ressemblassent pas.” (Jean Cocteau unique et multiple)
• Royal Academy of Belgium. Cocteau became a member of the Royal Academy of Belgium in 1955. “J’ai été élu coup sur coup à l’Académie royale de Belgique et à l’Académie française. Je me suis donc trouvé en face du problème d’écrire deux discours qui ne se ressemblassent pas.” (Jean Cocteau unique et multiple)
• Robert Bresson. The scriptwriter list credits Cocteau on a film directed by Bresson. “Nos conceptions du cinématographe n’étaient pas les mêmes. Mais tout ce qui aurait pu nous diviser était au contraire prétexte à une entente profonde.” (Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée)
• Marcel Proust (1871). Le Potomak (Jean Cocteau) — peer for Marcel Proust (via Le Potomak, Du côté de chez Swann) “Edith Wharton described him as a man "to whom every great line of poetry was a sunrise, every sunset the foundation of the Heavenly City..." === Early career === In his early twenties, Cocteau became associated with the writers Marcel Pr…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Igor Stravinsky. Cocteau wrote the libretto for Stravinsky’s Oedipus rex. (also via Le Sacre du printemps) “Cocteau wrote the libretto for Igor Stravinsky 's opera-oratorio Oedipus rex , which had its original performance in the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt in Paris on 30 May 1927.” (Wikipedia)
• Erik Satie. Les Enfants terribles (Jean Cocteau) — collaborator for Erik Satie (via Les Enfants terribles, Parade) “A meeting with Jean Cocteau in 1915 led to the creation of the ballet Parade (1917) for Sergei Diaghilev, with music by Satie, sets and costumes by Pablo Picasso, and choreography by Léonide Massine.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Raymond Radiguet. Cocteau and Radiguet collaborated on literary projects. “In 1918, he met the French poet Raymond Radiguet . They collaborated on literary projects, socialized, and traveled together.” (Wikipedia)
• Entr'acte by René Clair (1924). Entr'acte (René Clair) — geography for Jean Cocteau “He drew inspiration from filmmaker René Clair while making Tribute to René Clair: I Married a Witch.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Un Chien Andalou by Luis Buñuel (1929). Un Chien Andalou (Luis Buñuel) — geography for Jean Cocteau “The furor was so great that the premiere of another film financed by the de Noailles, Jean Cocteau's The Blood of a Poet, had to be delayed for over two years until outrage over L'Age d'Or had died down.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• L'Étoile de mer by Man Ray (1928). L'Étoile de mer (Man Ray) — geography for Jean Cocteau “Many significant members of the art world, including Tzara, Pablo Picasso, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Jean Cocteau, Salvador Dalí, Peggy Guggenheim, Alice Rahon, Bridget Bate Tichenor, Luisa Casati, and Antonin Artaud, posed for his ca…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Chéri by Colette (1920). Chéri (Colette) — peer for Jean Cocteau “== Works == === Literature === ==== Poetry ==== ==== Novels ==== ==== Theatre ==== ==== Poetry and criticism ==== ==== Journalistic poetry ==== === Film === ==== Director ==== ==== Scriptwriter ==== ==== Dialogue writer ==== ==== Directo…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Du côté de chez Swann by Marcel Proust (1913). Du côté de chez Swann (Marcel Proust) — peer for Jean Cocteau “Edith Wharton described him as a man "to whom every great line of poetry was a sunrise, every sunset the foundation of the Heavenly City..." === Early career === In his early twenties, Cocteau became associated with the writers Marcel Pr…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Léon Bakst. Cocteau collaborated with Bakst on Le Dieu bleu. “In 1912, he collaborated with Léon Bakst on Le Dieu bleu for the Ballets Russes ; the principal dancers being Tamara Karsavina and Vaslav Nijinsky .” (Wikipedia)
• Édith Piaf. Cocteau wrote Le Bel Indifférent for Piaf, who starred in it. “In 1940, Le Bel Indifférent , Cocteau's play written for and starring Édith Piaf (who died the day before Cocteau), was enormously successful.” (Wikipedia)
• Georges Hugnet. The works list credits Hugnet as Cocteau’s collaborator. “1952: Le Chiffre sept – La Nappe du Catalan (in collaboration with Georges Hugnet )” (Wikipedia)
• Jean Genet. Cocteau supplied drawings for an edition of Genet’s novel. “In 1947 Paul Morihien published a clandestine edition of Querelle de Brest by Jean Genet , featuring 29 very explicit erotic drawings by Cocteau.” (Wikipedia)
• Georges Franju. Cocteau’s reported reply grants Franju permission to adapt his novel Thomas l’imposteur. “Je te donne Thomas. C’est par toi que je veux être trahi !” (Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée)
• Pierre Billon. Pinoteau, an assistant on Ruy Blas, recalls Cocteau’s participation alongside its director, Billon. “Sa présence sur le plateau et aux projections, sa complicité avec les acteurs, n’offensaient pas Pierre Billon qui savait ce qu’un tel talent pouvait apporter à sa réalisation.” (Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée)
• Nadja by André Breton (1928). Nadja (André Breton) — peer for Jean Cocteau (openlibrary.org)
• Les Enfants terribles by Jean-Pierre Melville (1950). Les Enfants terribles (Jean-Pierre Melville) — collaborator for Jean Cocteau (themoviedb.org)
• Wings of Desire by Wim Wenders (1987). Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders) — collaborator for Jean Cocteau (themoviedb.org)
• Moulin Rouge by Georges Auric (1952). Moulin Rouge (Georges Auric) — collaborator for Jean Cocteau “Anthology, 4 CD containing numerous poems and texts read by the author, Anna la bonne, La Dame de Monte-Carlo and Mes sœurs, n'aimez pas les marins by Marianne Oswald, Le Bel Indifférent by Edith Piaf, La Voix humaine by Berthe Bovy, Les…” (en.wikipedia.org)

Who Jean Cocteau influenced

• Philip Glass (1937). Cocteau's films made a lasting impression on Glass. (also via La Belle et la Bête, Jean Cocteau) “In 1954, Glass traveled to Paris, where he encountered the films of Jean Cocteau , which made a lasting impression on him.” (Wikipedia)
• Luis Buñuel. Le Sang d'un poète (Jean Cocteau) — ghost for Luis Buñuel (via Le Sang d'un poète, Un Chien Andalou) “The furor was so great that the premiere of another film financed by the de Noailles, Jean Cocteau's The Blood of a Poet, had to be delayed for over two years until outrage over L'Age d'Or had died down.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Christian Dior (1905). La Belle et la Bête (Jean Cocteau) — ghost for Christian Dior (via La Belle et la Bête) “Bérard's most renowned achievement was probably his lustrous, magical designs for Jean Cocteau's film La Belle et la Bête (1946).” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Charlotte et son Jules. Godard's short film is an explicit homage to Jean Cocteau. “made his last short before gaining international prominence as a filmmaker, Charlotte et son Jules, an homage to Jean Cocteau” (Wikipedia)
• Caravaggio by Derek Jarman (1986). Caravaggio (Derek Jarman) — legacy for Jean Cocteau “He is also cited as an influence on filmmakers including David Lynch, Kenneth Anger, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette, Pedro Almodóvar, and Derek Jarman.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Surrealism. The article says Cocteau influenced Surrealism. “He was one of the foremost avant-garde artists of the 20th century and highly influential on the Surrealist and Dadaist movements, among others.” (Wikipedia)
• Dada. The article says Cocteau influenced Dada. “He was one of the foremost avant-garde artists of the 20th century and highly influential on the Surrealist and Dadaist movements, among others.” (Wikipedia)
• Les Six. The article identifies Les Six as influenced by Cocteau. “An important exponent of avant-garde art , Cocteau had great influence on the work of others, including a group of composers known as Les Six .” (Wikipedia)
• Jacques Rivette. Cocteau is cited as an influence on Rivette. “I retell this often (laughs). The guilty party is Jean Cocteau. The determining factor was the release of La Belle et la Bête , and, most of all, the publication of his diary of the shoot. I had read a lot of Cocteau, whom I liked a lot.” (My Gleanings)
• Pedro Almodóvar (1949). Cocteau is cited as an influence on Almodóvar. “In the ’80s, I [referenced] Jean Cocteau in Law of Desire, and after that, in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. It was my first intention to make an adaptation of The Human Voice .” (Vulture)
• Derek Jarman. Cocteau is cited as an influence on Jarman. (also via Caravaggio)
• The Mystery of Oberwald. Antonioni's film was based on Cocteau's play. (via L'Aigle à deux têtes) “In 1980, Antonioni directed Il mistero di Oberwald ( The Mystery of Oberwald ), based on Jean Cocteau 's play, L'Aigle à deux têtes ( The Eagle With Two Heads ).” (Wikipedia)
• Peau d'âne by Jacques Demy (1970). Peau d'âne (Jacques Demy) — legacy for Jean Cocteau (themoviedb.org)
• Pan's Labyrinth by Guillermo del Toro (2006). Pan's Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro) — legacy for Jean Cocteau (themoviedb.org)
• Maya Deren (1917). The Blood of a Poet (Jean Cocteau) — titan for Maya Deren (via The Blood of a Poet) (themoviedb.org)
• Andy Warhol (1928). Warhol is named among artists influenced by Cocteau.
• David Hockney (1937). Hockney is named among artists influenced by Cocteau.
• Amadour. Amadour is named among artists influenced by Cocteau.
• Sutapa Biswas. Biswas is named among artists influenced by Cocteau.
• Félix González-Torres. González-Torres is named among artists influenced by Cocteau.
• David Lynch (1946). Cocteau is cited as an influence on Lynch.
• Kenneth Anger. Cocteau is cited as an influence on Anger.
• Alejandro Jodorowsky. Cocteau is cited as an influence on Jodorowsky.
• Jean-Luc Godard (1930). Cocteau is cited as an influence on Godard.
• Chanel No. 5 by Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel (1921). Antigone (Jean Cocteau) — culture for Chanel No. 5 (via Antigone)