Jean Cocteau (Cocteau Jean)

(1889-1963)
Winner of a truly Renaissance temperament, he not only wrote poetry, novels, plays and scripts, but also illustrated his books, and even painted the church. Perhaps the best known Cocteau brought his films. The most complete issue of power of art over time is embodied in the film Beauty and the Beast (La Belle et la bte, 1945). Another of his famous film - Orpheus (Orphe, 1950). Cocteau was a success and on the theatrical stage. Among the most famous of his plays - Difficult Children (Les Enfants terribles, 1925), Human Voice (La Voix humaine, 1930), an infernal machine (La Machine infernale, 1934).
Cocteau was born July 5, 1889 at the Maison Lafite. During the 'Russian Seasons' friends with Diaghilev, Igor Stravinsky, Picasso, Modigliani A., E. Satie. It seemed as much linked him to the Surrealists, but in their group is not logged. Neither poetry nor fiction was not his element, but noteworthy prose version of difficult children and the novel The Pretender Tom (Thomas l'imposteur, 1923). In all of his creative aspirations Cocteau sought to go beyond the usual, not forgetting, however, that, 'how far you can go too far'. Cocteau died at his country home near Fontainebleau, 11 October 1963.