Orpheus simultaneously presents two aspects of the poetic process: that of the poet—Cocteau; and that of an ideal poetic instrument—the cinema….

The central theme of Orpheus is poetry's all-pervading power.

For Cocteau, as for every poet, poetry is the only truth, the only way of life, the only means of approaching essential reality. All else is the gross and perishable imaginings of earth-bound men. (p. 18)

Cocteau has poured into Orpheus all his obsessions; his preoccupation with mirrors (narcissism); his weakness for cruel and unmotivated practical jokes (poets cannot help being enfants terribles); his awe for the "holy"; his complete familiarity with all aspects of the dream, trance states and second sight (Cocteau experimented with almost every drug); and, finally, his penchant for mystification—an infantilism that has persisted to the threshold of old age.

To dazzle, to intimidate, to reveal marvels of all kinds, to invent...