L'Eternel retour

RELEASED IN OCTOBER 1943, L'ETERNEL RETOUR's re-working of the legend of Tristan and Iseult in a stylized but contemporary setting was the film event of that year. With a screenplay by Jean Cocteau, the film was the most popular film of the entire Occupation period (Crisp). Along with La Nuitfantastique (L'Herbier, 1942) and Les Visiteurs du soir, the most successful film of 1942, it was seen as part of a new trend in French cinema. Like Les Visiteurs du soir (directed by Marcel Carnm and scripted by Jacques Pr6vert), L'Eternel retour was praised for its aesthetic qualities. Most critics saw in it an escape from the daily life under the Occupation into a fantastic, poeticized world of heightened aspirations and emotions. If some were critical of the incorporation of elements reflecting Cocteau's poetic universe,1 they nevertheless applauded the film's imaginative combination of modern setting and universal theme, its stylized settings, lighting, costuming and acting style. Credit for the film's success was accorded not just to Cocteau, but to director Jean Delannoy, cinematographer Roger Hubert and music coordinator Georges Auric. Whatever the contributions of Cocteau's collaborators, it is evident that the film not only derives its inspiration from Cocteau, for whom its realization was a long-cherished dream, but that he also played a major role in the designing, casting and editing. According to actor Jean Marais, Cocteau's presence at the shooting was enough to affect the mood of the film, giving a more poetic edge to Delannoy's otherwise rather leaden direction (Marais 147).2 L'Eternel retour was Cocteau's first major step into film-making since the experimental Le Sang d'un porte (1930). He prepared himself for the task by working on Serge de Polignac's Le Baron fantdme (1943), writing the dialogues and taking on the small role of the eponymous baron. In L'Eternel retour, Cocteau aimed to elevate a modern story to the status of myth (Art of Cinema 189) by proving that Nietzsche's notion of eternal return could be applied to the fate of the doomed lovers whose story is relived by others, without their even realizing it. The Tristan and Iseult of legend become blonde-haired Patrice and Nathalie (Jean

Art · Art history · Dream · Film director · Legend · Literature · Movie theater · Poetry · Psychic · Style (visual arts) · Symbol (formal) · Theme (computing) · Visual arts · Cinema and Media Studies · French Historical and Cultural Studies · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Philosophy · Psychology

• Recent Articles on French History

  Jean‐pierre V M Herubel, Jean-Pierre V M Hérubel•French Historical Studies•2005

  Add to list