Jean Cocteau

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Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau ( , , ; 5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, film director, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost artists of the surrealist, avant-garde, and Dadaist movements and an influential figure in early 20th century art. The ''National Observer'' suggested that, "of the artistic generation whose daring gave birth to Twentieth Century Art, Cocteau came closest to being a Renaissance man.".

He is best known for his novels ''Le Grand Écart'' (1923), ''Le Livre blanc'' (1928), and ''Les Enfants Terribles'' (1929); the stage plays ''La Voix Humaine'' (1930), ''La Machine Infernale'' (1934), ''Les Parents terribles'' (1938), ''La Machine à écrire'' (1941), and ''L'Aigle à deux têtes'' (1946); and the films ''The Blood of a Poet'' (1930), ''Les Parents Terribles'' (1948), ''Beauty and the Beast'' (1946), ''Orpheus'' (1950), and ''Testament of Orpheus'' (1960), which alongside ''Blood of a Poet'' and ''Orpheus'' constitute the so-called Orphic Trilogy. He was described as "one of [the] avant-garde's most successful and influential filmmakers" by AllMovie. Cocteau, according to Annette Insdorf, "left behind a body of work unequalled for its variety of artistic expression."

Though his body of work encompassed many different mediums, Cocteau insisted on calling himself a poet, classifying the great variety of his works – poems, novels, plays, essays, drawings, films – as "poésie", "poésie de roman", "poésie de thêatre", "poésie critique", "poésie graphique" and "poésie cinématographique".