The Best Old Movies on a Big Screen This Week: NYC Repertory Cinema Picks, March 16-22
The Blood of a Poet (1932)
Directed by Jean Cocteau
The displaced narcissism of the artist has perhaps never been depicted so frankly as in this early short by the French master, in a scene where a man paints a mouth that comes to life as he makes love to it. Elsewhere, Cocteau teases out other aspects of artistic creation, even depicting mythic inspiration as something close to a legitimate history of poets and sculptors. Cocteau’s special effects bring inanimate objects seemingly to life, both indebted and uncontrolled by their makers. Perhaps the true reflection of “the process,” though, consists of nothing more than a stumbling man receding into a projected void, feeling his way through the murk toward sight. Jake Cole (March 16, 7:30, 9:15pm at “Metrograph A-Z”)