«SURPRISE US!»
F
rancine was separated from her husband long before his
death, although he never gave her a divorce. The villa Santo
Sospir was his gift to Francine, his fulfilled promise to give
her a «dream house». Sailing along Cap Ferrat, they saw this man-
sion; and a few years later, here she was, alone with that same view
of the endless blue sea, the mountains of the Côte d’Azur and Jean
Cocteau walking around the villa, stained with paints...
Apparently, it is not by chance that Jean Cocteau, the very incarna-
tion of the artist of the early 20th century, was born during World
Expo, held in Paris from May to October 1889 and well-timed with
the centenary of the Fall of the Bastille. Meanwhile, the fortress of
rigid ideas about art and music was stormed in the early 1910–20s
by a whole bunch of artists of a new era from many different coun-
tries around the globe.
«Surprise us!» — Sergei Diaghilev asked during his first meeting with
Cocteau in 1912 at the Russian Seasons in Paris. Jean Cocteau indeed
surprised. The gory legends of the past, harmless in the darkness of
denial for many years fed on the cynicism of wartime. And then sud-
denly, after a long winter of indifference, Cocteau revived the walls of
the «dream house» with graphic comments on his relationship with
beloved women, men and youths. Jean Cocteau stood his ground
firmly against Madeleine Castaing, designer commissioned by Fran-
cine to furnish and decorate the villa. Jean challenges the fashion
artist and turns the white walls into a song of love, presenting his
life on a snow-white cloud of feelings, which he soon confesses to
the mistress of the house.
«THE LORD OUR GOD SLEW HIM
BY THE HAND OF A WOMAN»
I
t happened in 589 BC. King Nebuchadnezzar, defeating Arfak-
sad, sends his comrade-in-arms and experienced commander
Holofernes to curb the people in the west of Assyria. Along the
way, having reached the Jewish lands, Holofernes stops in a moun-
tain village of Bethulia. Judith, a young woman from the village,
puts on beautiful clothes, aromatic oils and, putting her faith in a
higher power, goes to the enemy camp, where she spends three
nights seducing Holofernes. On the fourth night, when the enemy
falls asleep, she decapitates him. «And Lord our God slew him by
the hand of a woman» (Old Testament, Judith, 13: 15–16).
Soft shades, echoing the turquoise, Francine’s favorite colour, lull
and distract attention from the plot of the terrible story. Here, in the
dining room of the villa Santo Sospir, hangs the tapestry depicting
this biblical story and woven by diligent craftsmen from Aubus-
son. Eric Marteau, the permanent caretaker of the villa, draws our
attention to a woman in a chiton with the face of Cocteau himself.
Did Cocteau give tribute to the illustrious Swiss, Carl Jung, with his
new-fangled theories about gender distortions and dream inter-
pretations? Or, is this a hint to another version of the biblical tale, in
which Holofernes is killed by his soldier disguised as a servant? Or,
Holofernes, with his judgement clouded by wine, not being able to
have intimate relations with Judith, he neglects the woman for the
sake of alcohol. And in this, Freud (idolized by Cocteau) perceives
a special connotation, describing the female Judith complex. With
the rejection of the woman and her anger illustrated on the tapes-
try, Jean seems to be punishing himself and asking for forgiveness
from Francine, as he could not offer her his whole heart, where
along with the attraction to the female body, there was also a fierce
passion for the young men.
Cocteau’s mosaic work on the patio
taken by surprise, sighing over some heavy loss (the name Santo
Sospir means «sacred sigh»). Or maybe it was Cocteau himself,
tired of the recent filming of «Terrible Children», where he entered
into a desperate fight and contest, pitted against the iron will of
the director Jean-Pierre Grumbach, famous in the world of cinema
as Melville. Hardened by «Operation Dragoon» of Southern France,
which took place in August 1944, Melville seemed to resort to hand-
to-hand combat on the set as well, not allowing Cocteau to interfere
in the screen version of his own work.
Musagète, «Lord of the Muses» (as Apollo is alternatively called),
looks at the guests of the Villa Santo Sospir, frowning with his
eyebrows and conversing like an oracle with his own creator and
inspiring the weary Jean to believe in the future. Cocteau is per-
plexed, but fishermen of Villefranche, frightened by such a sud-
den proximity to a celestial being, help him to regain his faith
in Musagète’s Muses. Their tanned bodies whisper about the
coziness of simple earthly delights, saving Apollo-Jean from his
SACRED SIGH OF MUSAGÈTE
D
elphic Apollo, the guardian of Athens is depicted above
the fireplace in the living room of Santo Sospir. He
seemed to be dissatisfied with something, as if he was
Staircase
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