This month sees the founding member of Siouxsie and The Banshees, musician and composer Steven Severin bring his haunting live soundtrack of Jean Cocteau’s 1930 debut film Blood of a Poet, in a tour of cinemas around Britain. Dark and intriguing, Severin’s avant-garde poetic music recital perfectly complements the surreal world and seductive imagery of the black and white film, which caused uproar and scandal when it was first released. Cocteau was given a million francs by the Vicomte de Noailles to make his surreal first film, a meditation on art and dreams, which stars photographer Lee Miller in her only film role, with costumes designed by none other than Coco Chanel. Cocteau described its disturbing series of images as "a descent into oneself, a way of using the mechanism of the dream without sleeping, a crooked candle, often mysteriously blown out, carried about in the night of the human body."
Blood of a Poet is touring Britain until 18th November, for dates see here.
