Jean Cocteau

by Claude Arnaud

Romancier fêté, cinéaste admiré, poète méconnu, dramaturge et dessinateur d'exception, Cocteau est l'un des créateurs les plus féconds du XXe siècle. Doté d'une rare aptitude à changer de style et de forme, à mourir à soi pour ressusciter autrement, il évoque par son caractère protéiforme ces deux géants - Picasso et Stravinsky - qui furent ses proches, et parfois ses collaborateurs. Véritable baromètre du climat parisien, il incarna tous les courants et chaque art, l'architecture exceptée : au Cocteau proustien succéda un Cocteau avant-gardiste, puis dadaïste, surréalisant et néoclassique, enfin féerique ; bref, cet auto-fictionneur en actes donnait l'impression de faire de lui ce qu'il voulait :jeune homme, il se voyait même en demi-dieu.

Aucune biographie d'envergure n'avait paru en France depuis trente ans; nulle n'avait eu pour ambition de replonger ce météore durable dans sa constellation d'origine, de la France de l'affaire Dreyfus à celle de Johnny Hallyday, en passant par cet âge d'or que furent les années 20 et les années sombres de l'Occupation. Outre le romancier fulgurant des Enfants terribles et le Pygmalion de Radiguet, le mémorialiste inspiré de La difficulté d'être et l'amoureux de Marais, on découvrira l'engagé volontaire de 1916, l'opiomane et le «chrétien » de 1925, l'« inventeur» de Genet et l'entraîneur d'un immense boxeur noir-tous « personnages» intensément vivants, imprévisibles et humains. Avec cette biographie inspirée, Claude Arnaud a fait le roman vrai de tous les Cocteau qu'abritait ce créateur hors pair, « brillant comme une larme », mort il y a quarante ans cette année.

Romancier (Le caméléon, 1994, prix Femina du premier roman, et Le jeu des quatre coins, 1998, chez Grasset), biographe (Chamfort, Robert Laffont, 1988, prix Léautaud, prix Fénéon, prix de l'Essai de l'Académie française), Claude Arnaud a travaillé aussi pour le cinéma et le théâtre. Il est critique littéraire au Point.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, History, France, Art, Literature, Film

865 pages, Broché

First published September 1, 2003

About the author

Claude Arnaud (born 1955) is a French writer, essayist, biographer. He won the 2006 Prix Femina Essai.
He worked as an offset printing activist, and participated with the Workers' Struggle.

From 1977–83 he worked in "Film" monthly, led by Jacques Fieschi. He studied literature at the University of Vincennes. He wrote a play about "the redemptive powers of love," with Bernard Minoret, "Les salons" ("Trade shows"). In 1988, he published a biography of Nicolas Chamfort.

(from Wikipedia)

Romancier (Le caméléon, 1994, prix Femina du premier roman, et Le jeu des quatre coins, 1998, chez Grasset), biographe (Chamfort, Robert Laffont, 1988, prix Léautaud, prix Fénéon, prix de l'Essai de l'Académie française), Claude Arnaud a travaillé aussi pour le cinéma et le théâtre. Il est critique littéraire au Point.

Reviews

[Geoff]

Just picked up this big beautiful thing over at the National Gallery bookstore - 1,000+ pages, first time translated, gorgeous hardcover - has some epic potential!

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nearly 1,000 pages a month’s worth of reading…and it was all more than worth it.

Not the longest book I’ve ever read but certainly the densest. New friendships are made every page only to be betrayed on the next, books and poems come to fruition and are quickly forgotten, great romances form and soon turn to heartbreak. It is an encyclopedic biography but when the subject is so imbued with wonder it’s hard not to be completely enthralled.

[Steve Donoghue]

At long last translated into English, here's an enormous - and enormously sympathetic - biography of the weirdly eccentric artist, director, and writer Jean Cocteau. Here's my full review:

http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/boo...

[Mandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve seen this long, meticulously and painstakingly researched and exhaustively detailed biography of Jean Cocteau described as “monumental” and “a landmark” – and I totally agree. Originally published in France in 2003 it has now been translated into English (and what a task that must have been) – and now around 1,000 pages of densely written text of often convoluted and high-flown narrative is now available to a wider audience. This is not a book for the faint-hearted as it demands a certain amount of stamina to wade through it but the effort is richly rewarded. It’s a sweeping study of a complex artist who knew just about everyone who was anyone during his long life, which makes the biography not only fascinating in itself but also opens a window into a whole range of other artists’ lives, from Picasso to Nijinsky, Coco Chanel to Proust and many many others on the way. A very impressive book indeed.

[James Tierney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jacketed by Philippe Halsman’s wonderfully metacarpal portrait, Claude Arnaud’s own depiction of Jean Cocteau is similarly playful and capacious (literally at over 1,000 pages).
The victim of both homophobia and a lack of English translations of his written work, Cocteau reputation sits with his films, especially La Belle et la Bête and Orphée. Those revelled in high emotionalism and uncomplicated yet astonishing special effects - displaying a surrealism less seminal than excitingly dream-like. Sometimes justly accused of being a better talker than writer, Cocteau’s Nietzschean tendencies drifted towards fascism more than is comfortable, even as when under Nazi occupation he sought to protect (most) of his friends where he could.
Good or bad, Arnaud’s voluminous research ensures he has the receipts and with an exceptionally able translation by @lauren_elkin_ and Charlotte Mandel there is no better document in English to consider the whirlwind life and productivity of this subject. Cocteau’s reputation risks obscuring his work but the beauty of Arnaud’s loquacious brand of incisive thoroughness is the picture of a near ultimate bon vivant that is presented is in the round. This thereby rescues Cocteau from his own artistic defensiveness, to better set for the reader’s consideration the still supremely dazzling gems to be found in the muck of his own bullshit.

[Kbrooke · Rating 3 out of 5]

1000-plus pages of easily the most frustrating and sometimes infuriating biography I've ever read--or at least, finished. Can't decide if it's Cocteau's fault or just a fixation of the author that renders this a bipolar, boom-bust narrative repeating in endless cycles of "Everyone loathes him," then suddenly he creates a work that everyone loves, then five minutes later (sometimes literally), everyone thoroughly despises him again. Cocteau appears to have been the most hated man in French arts and letters, which, if you believe that Paris is the only place that matters, might have made him at times the most hated man in France full stop.

Cocteau's chief fault and most grievous crime, it seems, was to be a constant shape-shifter, magpie, and discipline-hopper. To which one wants to respond, so what? Why was/is this such a ding on his reputation, so hard to accept? Why must it even be explained? The man contained multitudes; that's enough of a through-line. One gets the suspicion that something entirely unique to the French/Parisian hothouse environment--so rigid in its need to define, categorize, and establish rules; narrow-minded and incestuous; quick to level charges of dilettantism and defensive to the point of ad hominem offense--was again the true culprit.

And being French itself, the book indulges in psychoanalysis and writerly acrobatics over clarity. It presumes a lot of pre-existing knowledge on the part of the reader, eschews a clear chronology or any objective/rational/comprehensible description of Cocteau's works, maddeningly drops names of people whose presence and/or background are never sufficiently explained even via footnote, and despite being exhaustively sourced reads like so much gossip, anecdote, and opinion. Or rather, an excuse for the author to show off at the expense of his subject--and perhaps at the expense of the entire genre of biography.

Nevertheless, beyond or in spite of all this, there are engaging if head-scratching stories: the almost unhinged animus of Breton (lifelong) and his Surrealist crew toward JC's mere existence (the fights were so brutal because the stakes were so low?); a nifty sketch of Genet, who, I now realize, was a dead ringer for my last serious boyfriend; JC's strange interlude as the manager of a black boxer named Panama Al Brown; his affecting relationship with Jean Marais (nuf said); the strange existence (and choices) of artists under the Nazi Occupation. And of course plenty of Cocteau's own beautifully incise observations--which I am endeavoring to commit to memory, if only as a return on my investment in this doorstop of a book.

[Steven Ferre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exhaustive and exhausting.

Before reading this book, I possessed only a superficial knowledge of Cocteau, founded mainly on his stunning movie, Beauty and the Beast. If you can make it through this tome (no small task), you'll know as much as you can ever know about a person from a biography.

This book is difficult to follow at times, because the author has a penchant for identifying people by their creative works, rather than their names. However, it was worth persevering to learn how disappointingly petty and rivalrous the various artistic factions of Cocteau's milieu were. It shatters the illusion that artists are more evolved than the rest of us! Cocteau rose above this squabbling for the most part, but it did him little good it seems. Picasso and Genet come off particularly bad.

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

An intelligent and deeply affecting account of the complex life and work of Jean Cocteau, the artist, poet, novelist, filmmaker and playwright. A controversial and divisive figure, he lived an extraordinary life by any standards and this exhaustive book covers everything. At over 1000 pages it’s a huge commitment, a tough read at times but also incredibly rewarding for anyone with an interest in the art and culture of Paris in the first half of the 20th Century. One to take your time over, pore over every single detail and savour every page.

[...]

i be reading biographies every once in a while i put here to keep track etcc
i might write a review once i finish fully...

[David Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Had some insightful moments...paris during the war

[willowdog · Rating 4 out of 5]

The work is nothing but complete. It suffers from detail. The history of the arts in France in the 20th Century and Cocteau’s role is defined. I found myself referring to Wikipedia often as I have an extremely limited sense of French arts. I wish that the work was divided into two, one for his extraordinary life and loves and then a second volume of his arts and letters. He was an amazing individual. Can appreciate the scholarship.

[Marshall · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book on Cocteau, maddening at times just given the vast scope of Its subject’s life. Cocteau knew Empress Eugenia, Proust, Diaghilev, Man Ray, Stravinsky, “Les Six,” Natalie Paley, Jean Marais, Coco Channel, Sartre, Jean Genet, and was the inspiration for most of the film makers of the French new wave. He was a poet, novelist, painter, and film maker. He called himself a poet, but perhaps his most lasting legacy was as a film pioneer, creating some of the most potent images of the 20th century. He was a mentor to many, most notably Marais, who realized what his relationship with Cocteau meant to him late in life and celebrated it after Cocteau’s death. But perhaps his greatest achievement was to survive the incredibly bitchy world of the French literary scene. No one reading this book will ever have a good word to say about Andre Breton again, due to his chronic pettiness.

This book is amazing in terms of its scope. Despite its five star rating, it does suffer from a few flaws. The work was originally written in French and I think the author presumes a familiarity with French authors that just doesn’t exist for general American readers. Footnotes with explanations as to who certain people are would be helpful. Also the translation is fine, but I think there is a tendency to be overly faithful to French idioms that do not translate well in English. There are also sentences that have too many dependent clauses. Finally, the book seems to focus more on Cocteau as a social animal than to examine the work itself. It is thin on literary analysis at the expense of biographical details.

This book, despite its flaws, is likely to be the definitive work on Cocteau and his world.

[World Literature Today]

"The book is essential reading for anyone interested in French social and cultural history spanning Proustian Paris, two world wars, the modernist movement, and after. It offers a fascinating portrait of its conflicted subject whose mutability could be a challenge to any biographer." - Keith Garebian

This book was reviewed in the May 2017 issue of World Literature Today magazine. Read the full review by visiting our website: https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/...