Studiocanal have announced the August release of brand new 4k restorations of two films from one of cinema’s most influential artists, Jean Cocteau – a poet, playwright, novelist, designer, visual artist and one of the avant-garde movement’s most successful and influential filmmakers.

Le sang d'un poète and Le testament d'Orphée will be released on DVD, Digital Download and for the first time on Blu-ray on 5th August 2019 as part of Studiocanal’s Vintage World Cinema Collection.

Born in 1889, Cocteau grew up in Paris, immersed in the theatre and art world. He published his first volume of poems at just 15 and began mixing in bohemian circles becoming known as the Frivolous Prince. He associated with Marcel Proust, Maurice Barres, Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani and numerous other writers and artists with whom he later collaborated. At a time when society condemned it, he was openly homosexual and homoerotic undertones, imagery and symbolism pervade all aspects of his writings, art and films. He died in 1963 at the age of 74.

Le sang d'un poète (The Blood of a Poet) | Blu-ray, DVD & Digital Download

Made thirty years apart, these two films bookend Cocteau’s filmic career and are both considered masterpieces of the avant-garde movement. Made in 1932, the first part of the ‘Orphic’ trilogy  Le sang d'un poète, seeks to explore the feelings within a poet’s heart and soul, beginning in an artist’s studio where an unfinished statue comes to life. The lips of its androgynous face move, pressing a kiss to the artist’s hand. At the statues demand, he plunges it into a mirror.

Special features:

• Jean Cocteau: Hallucinogenic Poetics featuring interviews with Claude Arnaud, biographer of Cocteau and Dominique Marny, Cocteau’s great niece and director of the Comité Jean Cocteau

Le testament d'Orphée (Testament of Orpheus) | Blu-ray, DVD & Digital Download

In his last film Le testament d'Orphée (1960), Cocteau created a truly abstract piece of work as his swansong. He himself portrays an 18th century poet who travels through time on a quest for divine wisdom. In a mysterious, possibly post-apocalyptic wasteland, he has a series of enigmatic and surreal encounters with symbolic phantoms with whom he muses about the nature of art and his own career. With an eclectic cast that includes cameos from Pablo Picasso, Jean Marais, Brigitte Bardot, Charles Aznavour, Roger Vadim and Yul Brenner, Le testament d'Orphée brings full circle the journey Cocteau began in Le sang d'un poète – an exploration of the tortuous relationship between the artist and his creations.

Special features:

• Jean Cocteau: The Last Pharaoh featuring interviews with Claude Arnaud, biographer of Cocteau and Dominique Marny, Cocteau’s great niece and director of the Comité Jean Cocteau