A Partnership of Opposites: Melville’s Direction of Cocteau’s World
Jean Pierre Melville is best known for his gangster movies often featuring Alain Delon but he also made a film that is deeply emotional and poetic about murderous cruelty and love between siblings. Les Enfants Terribles was released in 1950 and represents a specific moment where the French literary establishment met the rising technical ambition of a young director.
The film is the result of a collaboration between two fundamentally unlike individuals: Melville who was the epitome of cinematic cool and Jean Cocteau who was defined by a poetic and flamboyant sensibility.
Origins of the Collaboration
Jean Cocteau sought out Melville after seeing his debut feature Le Silence de la mer. Cocteau was impressed by how Melville had independently produced a film with a very small budget and a high level of visual discipline. Although Cocteau was already an established director himself he believed he was too close to his 1929 novel to adapt it effectively. He wanted a director who could bring a sense of realism to the dreamlike world of the siblings.
Cocteau famously promised Melville that the final product would be Melville’s film despite it being based on Cocteau’s most personal story. They signed a contract giving Melville total control over the direction while Cocteau maintained authority over the dialogue and the general spirit of the text.
Filming Locations and Set Design
Melville rejected the use of traditional film studios for the primary settings of the movie. He filmed the central bedroom scenes within the Théâtre de l’Athénée and the Théâtre Pigalle. He chose these locations because he wanted a physical space that felt both enclosed and artificial to reflect the isolation of the characters. The stage layouts allowed for long tracking shots that could move seamlessly between different areas of the room which would have been impossible in a standard apartment. For the exterior scenes involving the snowball fight Melville filmed at the Lycée Condorcet. This was the actual school Cocteau attended as a boy and the specific location mentioned in the book.
Conflict Between the Siblings
The film depicts the intense and isolated world of Elisabeth and Paul who retreat into a shared bedroom following the death of their mother. The viewing experience is incredibly stressful not simply because of the physical claustrophobia of the single room but because of the constant and cruel arguments that define their interactions. Their relationship is governed by a series of psychological games they call The Game which serves to blur the lines between reality and imagination. What is actually occurring is the perversion of sibling affection into a form of romantic jealousy that prevents either from maturing. By refusing to leave their shared room they maintain a state of arrested development where their mutual dependency becomes a form of murderous cruelty. This emotional volatility creates a sense of dread as they manipulate one another and those around them to ensure that no outside romance can break their bond.
Conflict Between Director and Author
The relationship between Melville and Cocteau was tense for the duration of the shoot. Cocteau was present on the set nearly every day which Melville viewed as an intrusion on his authority. The most famous incident occurred when Cocteau accidentally called out “cut” during a scene which led Melville to briefly eject him from the set. They also disagreed on the acting style of the leads Nicole Stéphane and Edouard Dermit. Melville wanted the performances to be cold and precise whereas Cocteau urged the actors to be more emotive. They eventually formed a compromise where Melville controlled the technical choreography of the camera and Cocteau worked on the internal motivations of the performers.
Technical Innovations
Melville utilized deep focus and mobile camera movements that were highly unusual for French cinema at the time. He collaborated with cinematographer Henri Decaë to create a visual style defined by intense contrast and sharp lines to emphasize the claustrophobia of the siblings. Melville also made the unconventional choice to use Bach and Vivaldi for the soundtrack instead of a contemporary jazz score or a traditional film composer. He used the repetitive structures of baroque music to dictate the pace of the editing. This approach to sound and image was a significant departure from the studio bound traditions that had dominated the industry for decades.
The Legacy of the Film
Les Enfants Terribles stands as a testament to the creative friction between Melville’s stoic modernism and Cocteau’s baroque imagination. This tension created a visual language that transcends the era of its production and the individual habits of its creators.
The work is uniquely atypical for both artists. Cocteau would later secure his legacy with the surrealist Orpheus trilogy while Melville became the master of the modern noir with films like Le Samouraï. By coming together they produced a result that is the opposite of their usual solo efforts which remains a compelling reason to view the film.
The cult film has obsessed other artists including Philip Glass who masterfully reimagined this tension in his dance opera by creating a score for three dueling pianos that mirrors the recursive and obsessive nature of the siblings’ relationship.