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((short description|1930 film))
((more citations needed|date=April 2018))
((Use dmy dates|date=October 2020))
((Infobox film
| name           = The Blood of a Poet
| image          = Bloodofapoet.jpg
| caption        = DVD cover
| director       = [[Jean Cocteau]]
| producer       = [[Charles de Noailles]]
| writers        = Jean Cocteau
| starring       = [[Enrique Riveros]]<br>[[Lee Miller]]<br>[[Pauline Carton]]<br>[[Odette Talazac]]<br>[[Féral Benga]]<br>Jean Desbordes
| music          = [[Georges Auric]]
| cinematography = [[Georges Périnal]]
| editing        = Jean Cocteau
| distributor    = Tamasa Distribution<br>[[The Criterion Collection]]
| released       = ((Film date|1932|1|20|df=y))
| runtime        = 55 minutes
| country        = France
| language       = French
| budget         =
))
'''''The Blood of a Poet''''' (((lang-fr|'''Le sang d'un poète'''))) (1932) is an [[avant-garde]] film directed by [[Jean Cocteau]], financed by [[Charles de Noailles]] and starring [[Enrique Riveros]], a Chilean actor who had a successful career in European films. Photographer [[Lee Miller]] made her only film appearance in this movie, which features an appearance by the famed [[acrobatics|aerialist]] [[Barbette (performer)|Barbette]].<ref name = observer>((cite news
  | last = Liner
  | first = Elaine
  | title = Swingers: ''Barbette'' soars to greatness with the tragic tale of a trapeze artist
  | work = Dallas Observer
  | date = 2002-06-13
  | url = http://www.dallasobserver.com/2002-06-13/culture/swingers/
  | access-date = 2008-05-19
  | archive-date = 6 May 2015
  | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150506192325/http://www.dallasobserver.com/2002-06-13/culture/swingers/
  | url-status = dead))</ref> It is the first part of ''[[The Orphic Trilogy]]'', which is continued in ''[[Orpheus (film)|Orphée]]'' (1950) and concludes with ''[[Testament of Orpheus]]'' (1960).

==Plot==
''The Blood of a Poet'' is divided into four sections. In section one, an artist sketches a face and is startled when its mouth starts moving. He rubs out the mouth, only to discover that it has transferred to the palm of his hand. After experimenting with the hand for a while and falling asleep, the artist awakens and places the mouth over the mouth of a female statue.

In section two, the statue speaks to the artist, cajoling him into passing through a mirror. The mirror transports the artist to a hotel, where he peers through several keyholes, witnessing such people as an opium smoker and a [[hermaphrodite]]. The artist is handed a gun and a disembodied voice instructs him how to shoot himself in the head. He shoots himself but does not die. The artist cries out that he has seen enough and returns through the mirror. He smashes the statue with a mallet.

In section three, some students are having a snowball fight. An older boy throws a snowball at a younger boy, but the snowball turns out to be a chunk of marble. The young boy dies from the impact.

In the final section, a card shark plays a game with a woman on a table set up over the body of the dead boy. A theatre party looks on. The card shark extracts an Ace of Hearts from the dead boy's breast pocket. The boy's [[guardian angel]] appears and absorbs the dead boy. He also removes the Ace of Hearts from the card shark's hand and retreats up a flight of stairs and through a door. Realizing he has lost, the card shark commits suicide as the theatre party applauds. A female player transforms into the formerly smashed statue and walks off through the snow, leaving no footprints. In the film's final moments the statue is shown with an [[ox]], a [[globe]], and a [[lyre]].

Intercut through the film, [[oneiric (film theory)|oneiric]] images appear, including spinning wire models of a human head and rotating double-sided masks.

==Cast==
* [[Enrique Riveros]] as the Poet
* [[Elizabeth Lee Miller]] as the Statue
* [[Pauline Carton]] as the Instructor of Children
* [[Odette Talazac]] as Audience Member
* Jean Desbordes as Louis XV Friend
* Fernand Dichamps as Audience Member
* Lucien Jager as Audience Member
* [[Féral Benga]] as the Guardian Angel
* [[Barbette (performer)|Barbette]]

==Production and film==
''The Blood of a Poet'' was made during a time of transition to narrative sound film and still made use of written text such as the opening words: "Every poem is a coat of arms. It must be deciphered". The film is considered, along with ''[[L'Age d'Or|The Golden Age]]'' (1930), one of two [[French cinema|French films]] released at the end of this first phase of avant-garde film-making that continue to develop the model presented by ''[[Chien Andalou]]'':<ref name=oxford96>((cite book |last1=Nowell-Smith |first1=Geoffrey |title=The Oxford History of World Cinema |date=1996 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=[https://archive.org/details/oxfordhistoryofw00geof/page/100 100] |url=https://archive.org/details/oxfordhistoryofw00geof |url-access=registration |access-date=26 July 2019))</ref>

((cquote|quote=...elements of narrative and acting arouse the spectator's psychological participation in plot or scene while at the same time distancing the viewer by disallowing empathy, meaning and closure; an image of the disassociated sensibility or '[[double consciousness]]' praised by [[Surrealism]] in its critique of naturalism|width=75%|source=The Oxford History of World Cinema))

The film is a blend of Cocteau's classical aesthetics and the [[Baroque]] stylings of Surrealism. Cocteau's voice [[satirically]] explores his character's obsession with fame and death: "Those who smash statues should beware of becoming one". Dissolution of personal identity is presented in contrast with Western emphasis on stability and repetition.((citation needed|date=July 2020)) Cocteau would later write that, when he made the film, he "avoided the deliberate manifestations of the unconscious in favor of a kind of half-sleep where I labyrinthed myself. I was concerned only with the lustre and detail of the images that emerged from this deep night of the human body. I adopted them forthwith as documentary scenes of another realm".<ref>Cocteau, Jean. ''The Blood of a Poet''. Lily Pons, trans. New York: Bodley Press, 1949, p. 1.</ref>

''The Blood of a Poet'' was funded by Charles, Vicomte de Noailles, who gave Cocteau 1,000,000 francs to make it. Cocteau invited the Vicomte and his wife [[Marie-Laure de Noailles]], along with several of their friends, to appear in a scene as a theatre party. In the scene, they talked among themselves and, on cue, began applauding. Upon seeing the completed film, they were horrified to learn that they were applauding a game of cards that ended with a suicide, which had been filmed separately. They refused to let Cocteau release the film with their scene included, so Cocteau re-shot it with the famed [[Drag queen|female impersonator]] [[Barbette (performer)|Barbette]] and some extras.<ref name=newyorker>[[Francis Steegmuller]], "An Angel, A Flower, A Bird", ''The New Yorker'', 27 September 1969.</ref>

The film is not considered to be anti-theocratic in the way of [[Luis Buñuel]]'s ''[[L'Age d'Or]]'', but the film's protagonist does explore such varied topics as magic, archaic art, China, opium and transvestism before dying while playing cards in front of an indifferent audience.<ref name=oxford96 />

==Delayed release==
Shortly after the completion of the film, rumors began to circulate that it contained an anti-[[Christianity|Christian]] message. This, combined with the riotous reception of another controversial Noailles-produced film, ''[[L'Âge d'Or|L'âge d'or]]'', led to Charles de Noailles' expulsion from the famous [[Jockey-Club de Paris]], and he was even threatened with excommunication by the [[Catholic Church]].<ref name = newyorker /> The furore caused the release of ''The Blood of a Poet'' to be delayed for more than a year.

==Reception==
((expand section|date=April 2018))
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 94% based on ((nowrap|18 reviews)), with a weighted average rating of 7.6/10.<ref name="rottomatoes">((cite web|title=The Blood of a Poet (1930) - Rotten Tomatoes|url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_blood_of_a_poet/|website=Rotten Tomatoes.com|publisher=Flixer|access-date=7 April 2018))</ref> Author and film critic Leonard Maltin awarded the film three out of four stars, calling it "imaginative, dreamlike, and still a visual delight".<ref name="MaltinGreen2010">((cite book|author1=Leonard Maltin|author2=Spencer Green|author3=Rob Edelman|title=Leonard Maltin's Classic Movie Guide|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hLtaAAAAYAAJ|date=January 2010|publisher=Plume|isbn=978-0-452-29577-3|page=68))</ref>

==References==
((Reflist))

==External links==
* ((IMDb title|0021331))
* ((Amg movie|6150))
* ((Rotten tomatoes|the_blood_of_a_poet))
* [http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/16-the-blood-of-a-poet ''The Blood of a Poet''] an essay by Jean Cocteau at the [[Criterion Collection]]

((Jean Cocteau))
((Orpheus))

((DEFAULTSORT:Blood Of A Poet, The))
[[Category:1930 films]]
[[Category:1930s fantasy films]]
[[Category:French avant-garde and experimental films]]
[[Category:Films directed by Jean Cocteau]]
[[Category:1930s French-language films]]
[[Category:Films about Orpheus]]
[[Category:Films scored by Georges Auric]]
[[Category:Films with screenplays by Jean Cocteau]]
[[Category:Surrealist films]]
[[Category:French black-and-white films]]
[[Category:French fantasy films]]
[[Category:1930s French films]]

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