Past Tense: The Cocteau Diaries Volume 1 – A Secret Literary Diary of Creativity, Picasso, and 1950s Europe

Past Tense: Diaries #1

by Jean Cocteau

Jean Cocteau delighted in shocking the world. In pubic, at least, the image he presented was one of great daring -- a man eager to defy, willing to experiment, ready to challenge. Cocteau's achievements in almost every artistic medium -- including poetry, film, illustration, criticism, and ballet -- rightfully earned him a reputation for radical versatility. He assumed Oscar Wilde's role as "world's most dazzling talker" and Thomas DeQuincey's as "world's most conspicuous opium addict"; he drew depictions of his bouts in the all-male brothels of Toulon; he created the actor Jean Marais and the chanteuse Edith Piaf. But among Cocteau's many accomplishments was one composition protected by the private his diary.

Recorded during the last 13 years of his life, Cocteau's diary was kept a secret until 1983. this first of six projected volumes reveals Cocteau's life from 1951 to 1953. In it, he makes asides about Picasso, writes Oedipus rex, admires Stalin, travels through Europe, and engages in gross generalizations about Americans. With line drawings from Cocteau's original journal, Past Tense is a literary event -- a window into Cocteau's life and creativity as he wanted them to be remembered.

Genres: France, Biography, Diary, Art

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963) was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager, playwright and filmmaker. Along with other Surrealists of his generation (Jean Anouilh and René Char for example) Cocteau grappled with the "algebra" of verbal codes old and new, mise en scène language and technologies of modernism to create a paradox: a classical avant-garde. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Colette, Édith Piaf, whom he cast in one of his one act plays entitled Le Bel Indifferent in 1940, and Raymond Radiguet.

His work was played out in the theatrical world of the Grands Theatres, the Boulevards and beyond during the Parisian epoque he both lived through and helped define and create. His versatile, unconventional approach and enormous output brought him international acclaim.

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 1951, Jean Cocteau began keeping a diary; included in this volume is the first year and a half of that diary. The poet/ playwright/ novelist/ filmmaker/ scenarist starts his diary late in his life, but for someone who is of an age at which most people are thinking of retirement, Cocteau is very busy. In addition to writing a play, Bacchus, and a book of essays, Diary of an Unknown, the 62 year old also writes prefaces and speeches, gives interviews, and travels around Europe for revivals of his earlier plays and his films. Cocteau is a student of myth (his plays The Infernal Machine, and Other Plays. and Orphee are based on the myths of Oedipus and Orpheus respectively), so the pages from his diary detailing his travels in Greece and Rome are particularly detailed as he comments on the surroundings, the ruins and on his own retellings of the classic stories. In addition, one gets the sense that traveling brings Cocteau’s perspective on his own and other nations into sharper focus; there are many passages in which he comments on the character of different nations, including France, Germany and America.

Cocteau’s day to day experiences include meeting other artists and writers; thus, he records a conversation with Picasso, copies passages from letters written to him by Jean-Paul Sartre and Jean Genet, describes a visit to Collette’s house, and comments on his disagreements with Claude Mauriac. Inasmuch as he personally knows many of the people he reads, Cocteau has an interesting perspective from which to comment on their literary work. This is perhaps most clearly reflected in the pages in which Cocteau describes how he is rereading Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past; as he discusses Proust’s work, Cocteau relates it to what he knows of the author.

The diary includes comments on events Cocteau finds funny, strange or otherwise worth noting. Some of these events involve him personally; others are stories that he hears from others or learns of from the media. For instance, he discusses a recent murder; he also writes about the death of Eva Peron.

Many passages in the diary are about fame, and frequently Cocteau complains about how the media pays attention to him as a person, while saying little about his actual work. In some cases, Cocteau comments on how he is misrepresented by the press.

A couple of quotes give a sense of his style in the diary:

{November 9, 1952} Storms, tidal waves, earthquakes. Houses collapse in the north. Waves ten yards high submerge the southern coasts. Man doesn’t feel this to be enough, he dreams of H-bombs, of manufacturing cataclysms.

{November 22, 1952} Six o’clock. Back from {Paul Eluard's} funeral. No rain. Grim. In the grandstand, to the right of Dominique and Aragon. On the bier, tricolor and the mask molded on Paul, in his lifetime. Huge photograph in the style of the Stalingrad ceremonies. Political speeches. Aragon’s violent diatribe against the police (who had forbidden the procession). “I would forbid it,” he said, “for Sartre and for Mauriac.” In short, the police have saved everyone from having to make a terrible winter’s walk. Hideous Pere Lachaise: a huge garbage can. As we’re walking out, Vercors stops me: it’s Balzac’s little grave.

Acquired Apr 19, 2010
Powell's City of Books, Portland, OR

[Tosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first volume of Jean Cocteau's diary and a second volume was published as well. The drag thing is that there are supposed to be 6 volumes all together. In other words two were published and four were forgotten to the English language market Oh well, maybe TamTam Books can publish the other four, but it should also publish this volume as well as the second since it is now out-of-print.

You see how complicated publishing is? Nevertheless it is a fascinating document of a man who is totally part of his time - and perhaps a great artist. I go back and forth with Jean Cocteau for the obvious reasons.

On many levels he was a social climber, but on the other hand I think he was a good narrative writer and a superb filmmaker. A great filmmaker by the way. And all his various journals are either fantastic or at the very least super interesting. The Opium journals or his diary while making "Beauty and the Beast" are great journals. Right up there with Kafka's journals. And that is high praise my fellow readers.

Here in volume one you get the essence of the 1950's with all the great personalities as well as his observations. Jean Cocteau was a great figure in the French arts - he is sometimes inconsistant, but then again he really reached out for new adventures. And that I think is important with respect to being an artist. And Cocteau right or wrong, was an artist with a capital "A."

[Santino Dela · Rating 5 out of 5]

"There is a heigh I cannot reach, a high note that is not in my range. If I try, I produce a grimace. You must make up your mind to acknowledge your limits. This is probably the underlying reason I have changed means of expression. The hope of finding that note elsewhere. But the limit remains the same everywhere."

[Kirk · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Orient's terrible mistake was to have believed itself inferior to the West and to have accepted our example. Our missionaries imported disaster. The East will take its revenge for this dominance, and with our weapons. That is justice. [1951]

[Tom Lichtenberg]

this is someone i knew nothing about. He was quite famous in his time and would have been just as famous if he were around today - quite a character and of so many, varied talents (poet, filmmaker, choreographer, playwright, painter ...).

[Britain]

i have been reading this book for almost 2 years now and haven't got past page 40?
i actually was "reading" this book when andy started chatting me up for the first time ever.