Princess Death – Spanish-French actress Maria Casares

We watch ourselves grow old in mirrors. They bring us closer to death. Orpheus, 1950. Princess Death – Spanish-French actress Maria Casares (21 November 1922 – 22 November 1996)
Spanish-French actress Maria Casares
In the film of Jean Cocteau “Orpheus” Casares played Death, initially appearing in the guise of a mysterious, businesslike stranger in a black radio-fuzzy limousine (fiction for those days!). She is able to enter the depth of the mirror, leading the dead, and is able to return life, and gently, sacrificially love. Maria Casares plays Death, sent to Orpheus in the guise of a mysterious Princess.
According to the symbolist-poetic concept of Cocteau, Death was at the same time the embodiment of higher Love, and Maria Casares finally got the role she deserved. The searing blackness of her hair and clothes, the tragic Spanish temperament, the hypnotic gaze of the light eyes, suddenly replaced by black ones (painted by Cocteau on the eyelids of the actress) – this image is unforgettable.
Casares not only became a visual symbol of the style of this film, but also gave it her divine voice.
“… Maria Casares speaks, screams, her voice trembles, she trembles, falling into a state of trance, which already made the audience tremble … . Tears flow down her cheeks, she is sobbing. Jean Cocteau goes off shaken … “What an actress!” – he whispers.”
The episode refers to 1949 – the poet films the final scene of his “Orpheus” in the ruins of an old officer’s school, destroyed by German bombers.
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