COCTEAU Jean - Lot 64

Lot n° 64
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Estimation :
500 - 700 EUR
COCTEAU Jean - Lot 64
COCTEAU Jean Autograph MANUSCRIT signed "Jean Cocteau", Cherchez la femme,[1933]; 4 pages in-4 in pencil with corrections and additions in ink. On Mae West and femininity. Jean Cocteau wrote this text after seeing Lowell Sherman's film, She done him wrong (in French, Lady Lou), released in 1933 and starring the exuberant Mae WEST. She plays the role of a bar owner who treats men with the same casualness that Hollywood usually treats actors. This vision caused Cocteau a definite shock: "I thought about it when I received in my heart, like a blow from Pancrace, the terribly realistic images of May West"... This vision of an actress full of strength, life, with a triumphant carnal presence, evokes in contrast the two film stars who are the exact opposite: Greta GARBO and Marlène DIETRICH, "ghost beauties, created from scratch for the image [...] two great mysterious statues, pale as dead, slow and violent as Edgar Poe's heroines". In Cocteau's mind, women are either evanescent, unreal or, on the contrary, almost frighteningly vital. Where is the real femininity? Despite appearances, she may not be on Mae West's side, which reminds her more of the male world, "those fairy men, in those scary big boys from the Magic-City ball, in those ambiguous music hall numbers that flourished their infernal nerve, in New York in 1920. Look for the woman! The enigma remains to be solved"....
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