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"One of the great, incandescent moments
in modernist filmmaking."
—Peter Hogue
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(1950)
Melville.
B&W, 107 minutes.
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The director, Jean-Pierre Melville, expands Cocteau's novel about the shared disorder and confused narcissism of a brother and sister into a baroque tragicomedy. The movie glides along, gathering intensity, as the characters move—compulsively, as in a dream—toward self-destruction. With Nicole Stéphane, fiercely elegant as the dominating Elisabeth; Edouard Dermithe as Paul; Renée Cosima as Dargelos and Agatha; Jacques Bernard as Gérard. Almost voluptuous in its evocation of temperament and atmosphere, this film was shot, on a shoestring, in "real" settings—the director's flat, the lobby of the Petit Journal, the stage of the Théâtre Pigalle. When Melville was ill, Cocteau directed the summer beach scene in Montmorency, under snow. Cocteau also provides cryptic, emblematic narration. The score (Bach-Vivaldi) is one of the rare effective film usages of great music.
—Pauline Kael
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Nicole Stéphane and Edouard Dermithe in Les Enfants Terribles |
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Nicole Stéphane.................................................Elisabeth
Edouard Dermithe......................................................Paul
Jacques Bernard....................................................Gérard
Renée Cosima.......................................Dargélos / Agathe
Roger Gaillard.............................................Gérard's uncle
Melvyn Martin.......................................................Michael
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Nicole Stéphane in Les Enfants Terribles |
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