**Jean Cocteau (1889-1963)** was a versatile French artist, renowned for his contributions to cinema. His cinematic career explored themes of death, identity, and the artistic process, with a distinctly poetic and dreamlike style.

His debut, *Le Sang d'un Poète* (1930), is a surrealist masterpiece that investigates the artist's unconscious. He achieved widespread success with *La Belle et la Bête* (1946), a captivating visual reinterpretation of the fairy tale, praised for its poetry and special effects. He then completed his "Orphic Trilogy" with *Orphée* (1950) and *Le Testament d'Orphée* (1960), reinterpreting the Greek myth to explore the artist, death, and the afterlife.

His films are characterized by allegorical depth, innovative visual effects, and a unique fusion of fantasy and reality, defining him as a pioneering author.