Tag Archives: Jean Cocteau

“I would rather take a photograph than be one.” — Lee Miller

Lee Miller, by David Scherman It’s the birthday of Lee Miller, fashion model, Surrealist artist, and … as if all that wasn’t enough … the only female combat photographer in Europe during the war, taking photos of concentration camps, firing … Continue reading

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Year in Review: Running my mouth in 2013

Some of the things I’ve written in 2013, for my own site, and also other outlets. Thoughts on Memphis. “Memphis is wounded, and Memphis is obviously depressed. There are a lot of sad ghosts here. But Memphis does not forget. … Continue reading

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The Books: The Fun of It: Stories from The Talk of the Town, edited by Lillian Ross; ‘Cocteau’, by Geoffrey Hellman

Next up on the essays shelf: The Fun of It: Stories from The Talk of the Town (Modern Library Paperbacks) is a collection of “The Talk of the Town” pieces in The New Yorker, grouped by decade, which is a … Continue reading

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“Give Me Back My Beast!”

Greta Garbo reportedly called out those words at the ending of Jean Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast (1946), when she first saw the film. When the trapped Prince appears, after shedding his monstrous exterior, there is a strange sense of … Continue reading

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Nothing/Everything

It resembles nothing that I know of, and reminds me of everything I admire. — Jean Cocteau on Marcel Proust’s “Swann’s Way”

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