Le sang d'un poète, Le (1930, France)

An incomprehensible surreal film by Jean Cocteau; thank god this never caught on. There is a series of dream-like scenes without any obvious connection. After a schoolboy is killed by a stone contained in an innocent snowball, an elegant lady and a gentleman play cards on a table over his body.

We see elegantly dressed spectators entering what seem to be theatre boxes, to watch, and one of them is Barbette, the travesti artiste befriended by Cocteau. Barbette was really Vander Clyde, and he had built up a fanatical following for his travesti acts, especially trapeze and high wire acts while dressed as a female, with the disclosure of his gender made only at the end of the act.

In this film he performs in female mode throughout, and no revelation is made. It's a fairly short sequence.

The film is also known as Blood of a Poet.

HF November 2007

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