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The Orphic Trilogy

Film trilogy by Jean Cocteau

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 7, 2026
Entity authorityQ7755431 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Orphic Trilogy is a series of three French films written and directed by Jean Cocteau:

The Blood of a Poet, or Le sang d'un poète, 1932

Orpheus, or Orphée (also the title used in the UK), 1950

Testament of Orpheus, or Le testament d'Orphée, 1960

The Criterion Collection has released the trilogy as a DVD boxed set (which has since gone out-of-print).

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “The Orphic Trilogy” as film trilogy by Jean Cocteau. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1932, 1950, 1960—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Orphic, Trilogy and Film can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as film trilogy by Jean Cocteau. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7755431. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1932, 1950 and 1960.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “The Orphic Trilogy”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow The Orphic Trilogy primary sources, The Orphic Trilogy archive and Orphic research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Orphic Trilogy”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “The Orphic Trilogy” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.