This Charming Man

Jean Cocteau's all over the New Wave, if you know where to look.

Author note: tickets to attend the February 13th screening and Q&A of Orpheus (1950) at the Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles are going fast! Make sure you pick yours up ASAP before they sell out!

After: David Bowie’s “Ashes to Ashes” music video, 1980.

By the late 1970s, Jean Cocteau had been dead for about fifteen years. He was one of the last to go from his generation of the Parisian rabblerousers who shaped and shifted culture in their youth; only a few of his famous friends, such as Pablo Picasso and Coco Chanel, outlived him, and not by much.

Think about the arts and culture of the 1970s and the idea of a figure such as Jean Cocteau – a man mentored during the Belle Epoque by Marcel Proust, who caused a commotion with the Ballets Russes during WWI, and made fantasy fairy-tale films in the ash of WWII – being in the same milieu may feel out of step.

But to look at those whom our generation considers cultural prophets, who were just beginning to bloom in their creative lives and change their own landscapes, is to see the presence of Cocteau everywhere, hanging over like a spectre, for Jean Cocteau is your icon’s icon.

The musicians, in particular, who were reacting to and against the society that they had been born into, were very much steeped in the works of the generation that preceded them. Jean Cocteau is all over the New Wave rock genre that popped up during this especially fruitful period for music: the late 1970s into the mid 1980s.

Before: the final scene of Jean Cocteau’s Orpheus (1950).

Perhaps the most overt tribute to Jean Cocteau is the highly influential group that took his name: Cocteau Twins. It’s not uncommon for me to be asked if they’re my favorite band. It’s even more common that I encounter people who are familiar with the band, but not the artist they’re named for. (For the record, I adore them.)

The story behind the band name is eye-opening in the way that it reveals Jean Cocteau’s place within culture at the time: that they chose to name themselves after a song by a band also in their Scottish punk-rock orbit, Johnny and the Self-Abusers, which was called “The Cocteau Twins.”