I especially enjoyed our discussion in class about homosexuality at the time and how it was all about finding hidden meanings and signs in order to get together with a mate. The parallel drawn between a poet made sense to me, because a poet is constantly looking for signs and hidden meanings to pull into his work.
I like Cocteau's idea of poets being on the brink of death. To Cocteau to be a poet is to be on the verge of death and insanity, but to have the ability to bring yourself back from that sort of grey area and translate what you've seen into words. Not everyone has this ability and that's what makes a true poet. Obviously Orpheus is struggling with his poetry, but as he gets closer and closer to death he is more in tune with his creativity and is finding inspiration through Cegeste's poetic radio transmissions. Being under control of death makes Orpheus a better poet. As he embarks on his most intimate interaction with death at the end of the movie he crosses over the threshold into the world of death, but manages to come back and one can see that this experience is going to save his poetry.
This also ties into masochism and putting yourself through terrible pain, but at the same time experiencing great pleasure. Orpheus is seducing death, who is normally the seducer, but falls under his spell and death is pretty cruel to Orpheus at the beginning. Ultimately death has to pay through pain and punishment at the end of the movie, but she doesn't care because of the pleasure she felt while being in love with Orpheus. Through masochism you are some much in a sensory overload that you forget yourself and lose all sense of who you are and we can definitely see this in Orpheus and death in the movie. Death is supposed to be in control of herself and everyone else, but Orpheus has a hold on her that completely messes up her identity. The same goes for Orpheus, he forgets Eurydice and his former life as soon as he begins to fall for death and he doesn't care that he has to travel through the underworld or die, he just wants to feel the pleasure of being with her.
I have trouble understanding Freud, but as we discussed in class masochism is sort of like the next best thing to the Oedipus complex, or returning back to your mother. If you were able to return to your mother you would also be giving up your sense of self and accept that you were under her control. In the case of masochism, as I've said before, you're still throwing your identity to the wayside and accepting pain and pleasure as the thing that controls you.
I found your insight regarding masochism to be quite interesting since the film has a lot of undertones regarding this subject. After obsessing over Death throughout the movie, Orpheus traverses through the Underworld only to catch a glimpse of her, which is in a way, Orpheus' way of getting pleasure (seeing Death) from pain (going through the Underworld). This desire for such a pleasure becomes Orpheus addiction to masochism as he ultimately revolves his life around Death instead of Eurydice. This use of masochism is the sexual theme that replaces the homosexual overtone from the myth.
ReplyDeleteI loved how your mind was put to ease in class once you realized that Cocteau wasn't necessarily trying to push out a plot as much as symbols/ideas for his audience viewers to interpret themselves. A film like Orpheus is much easier to view when you don't have the worry of trying to follow and understand something that really isn't "there" to begin with.
ReplyDeleteYes, I think you said best with "Cocteau wanted to let go of the conventional plot centered idea of what a movie should be and delve into a dream world..." Even when a film starts in the middle, or runs out-of-order, there's usually a reason for it -- whether it be to emphasize what's important or intensify our expectations, etc. But with Orpheus, if we try to make sense of the order we only get more lost.
ReplyDeleteI think viewing this film is a lot like dreaming because our dreams don't always make sense. Slight difference being, at least for me, I don't try to make too much sense of a dream when it's happening, which is why I often wake up, try to retell it to someone and fail miserably. It's as if I don't have the words to say what just happened in my dream. With Orpheus we're definitely challenged to break away from our habit of "getting" a movie, and instead just let it happen before us. When the credits role we can wake up and talk to one another on these blogs and do our best to make sense out of it all. And hey, at least we have each other.
kind of going on what Taylor said in his comment, I really enjoyed how the film was pretty different from the myth, and like he said, presented symbols and ideas for the audience to interpret. I think especially in film adaptations today, this relatively fun part of film based on a previous story is lost. of course, many people want it to be based primarily on the book, but this is a fun idea every now and again!
ReplyDeleteHa, Ned you hit the nail on the head. I think you really can make a connection between the lack of coherency in this movie and dreams themselves. Thank god we have our blogs and each other.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really, really good post. You synthesize in very concise language a lot of what is really complex--about the movie and about the reading. I like what you say a lot about Orpheus's masochistic relationship with death making him a better poet (though it's interesting too that stealing from his rival Cegeste also makes him better). Curiously, being better doesn't ever make him nicer, or a better person. But I really do like how you put this all together so clearly.
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