Diary of an Unknown (1988), On Invisibility
Context: Man seeks to escape himself in myth, and does so by any means at his disposal... unnable to withdraw into himself, he disguises himself. Lies and inaccuracy give him a few moments of comfort, the trifling feeling of escape experienced at a masked ball. He distances himself from that which he feels and sees. He invents. He transfigures. He mythifies. He creates. He fancies himself an artist. He imitates, in his small way, the painters he claims are mad.
Jean Cocteau: Trending quotes
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“See your disappointments as good fortune. One plan's deflation is another's inflation.”
Diary of an Unknown (1988)
"Anubis" to the Sphinx, in Act 2 of The Infernal Machine (1932); Collected Works Vol. 5 (1948)
“The skin of all of us is responsive to gypsy songs and military marches.”
As quoted in Slonimsky's Book of Musical Anecdotes (2002) by Nicolas Slonimsky, p. 33
“In Paris, everybody wants to be an actor; nobody is content to be a spectator.”
Le Coq et l’Arlequin (1918)
“That pile of paper on his left side went on living like the watch on a dead soldier’s wrist.”
On his visit to the deathbed of Marcel Proust, as quoted in "Cocteau: The Great Enchanter" by Edmund White Vogue (May 1984)
“Be a mere assistant to your unconscious. Do only half the work. The rest will do itself.”
Diary of an Unknown (1988)
“Look out! Be on your guard, because alone of all the arts, music moves all around you.”
Le Coq et l’Arlequin (1918)
“Film will only become an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper.”
As quoted in The Super 8 Book (1975) by Lenny Lipton (ed. Chet Roaman); also in Aesthetic Aspects of Recent Experimental Film (1980) by Barry Walter Moore, Garth S. Jowett, p. 6
“When a work appears to be ahead of its time, it is only the time that is behind the work.”
Le Coq et l’Arlequin (1918)