Jean Cocteau
Clair-Obscur

If there's one thing I love, it's going to places where I don't know anyone.

I love going to bars and venues where, lubricated by stimulating libations, my mind can fantasize about the people I meet, imagining their lives and guessing their habits.

In short, I try to capture fragments of conversations, observe postures, scrutinize walks, and vivisect movements.

Near the river that cuts through the city where I live, there's a perfect place to indulge in this little habit of mine: a Bocci Club. I rarely meet people there whose lives, deaths, and miracles I already know, and, moreover, it offers the advantage, given the rather elderly clientele, of providing a wide spectrum of life upon which to exercise my quirky imagination.

I remember a gentleman I saw several times who immediately caught my attention: always on the sidelines, very well-dressed, meticulously shaved face, melancholic air, and measured and deliberate movements. He had something aristocratic and detached about him that starkly contrasted with the modus operandi of the other patrons.

And then one afternoon (or perhaps it was an evening), a friend of that gentleman (half tipsy and quite noisy) sat at the table with him, and together, they recounted anecdotes from their youth: and what anecdotes! Daring romantic adventures, explosive harvests, boat races on the Ticino.

In short, "my" haughty fallen nobleman had been a merry and reckless Harlequin, dedicated, to quote Thoreau, to "sucking the marrow out of life" like a fervent reveler.

Just like that gentleman, Jean Cocteau spent a large part of his life as a flamboyant leading character on the boards of a festive and colorful stage: of highly privileged birth, his entry into the literary and artistic circle of Belle Epoque Paris happened soon and, so to speak, quite naturally.

Actor, poet, painter, animator, playwright, novelist, presenter, mediator between the arts; the living paradigm of the activism and multidisciplinarity that characterized the figure of the artist in the first decades of the 20th century. An insatiable and inexhaustible hunger for stimuli and knowledge that led him, after the Second World War, to also venture into the profession of film director.

But perhaps this continuous juggling of a thousand works to be done, a thousand commitments to honor, and a thousand relationships to nurture, harmed, in terms of quality, his artistic production which was certainly at a high level, but as a novelist, he was not Proust (or Gide), as a painter, he was not Picasso, as a poet, he was not Apollinaire (or Eluard or Prevert), as an actor and playwright, he was not Artaud, and so forth.

And then, in 1954, at the age of 65, Cocteau published "Clair-Obscur," a collection of poems.

How strange it is to read this work!

Cocteau, always an agitator of crowds, instigator of provocations, seeker of novelty, here assumes the composure and simplicity of a moderate symbolist who, through simple images and essential ideas, sits at a Bocci Club table and lets the heartache and the spleen of an aging man be intuited.

Very brief compositions (many do not exceed two quatrains), polished and round, which, if compared to his youthful works, have an immediacy and a stunning straightforwardness.

References to symbols and characters from classic literature are not lacking, and for this reason, besides the already mentioned fleetingness, they somehow recall the creations of early Mandelstam, a Jewish-Russian poet and pinnacle, along with Akhmatova, of Acmeism.

However, if Mandelstam used the fine wood of classicism to create small artifacts with precise and defined shapes where the mists of Symbolism dissipated and the poet's hand was "invisible," Cocteau crafts his miniatures with a troubled heart, questioning his entire life and giving the distinct impression that he is somehow pervaded by a great regret for a wasted life, a greatly incomplete artistic work.

Against all odds, Cocteau presents himself as a defeated man. “Clair-Obscur,” but the shadows far outweigh the lights, as is quite natural and understandable for someone who (not a minor fact) feels their life slipping away.

Yet, precisely for this reason, precisely because it shows us the heart swollen with anguish and fear without filters and unnecessary embellishments, this collection of poems acquires a precious and poignant value and grace.

In this book, there are no daring images or astonishing verses, no hyperbolic fantasies or brilliant inventions. No. There remains only the figure of an old actor who slowly, before us, removes the heavy makeup from his face and whispers his last confessions, his definitive testament.

As for me, that day at the Bocci Club I would have liked to approach the two gentlemen and more clearly capture the secrets they were confiding (and if only I had been more tipsy, I probably would have ventured).

But, in the end, I'm glad I didn't. That afternoon (assuming it wasn't an evening) was their afternoon, and it was beautiful to see, from a distance, that gentleman so composed and taciturn, gradually, while talking to his friend, spread his lips in a magnificent smile.