Les Enfants Terribles

Continuing exposition by novelist, screenwriter and narrator Jean Cocteau, director Jean-Pierre Melville and cinematographer Henri Decae, on the relationship between Elisabeth (Nicole Stéphane) and brother Paul (Edouard Dermit, Cocteau’s lover at the time) whom she’s nursing, along with their mother, following a weird injury, in Les Enfants Terribles, 1950.

Typical of the director Jean-Pierre Melville, on his second feature, with camera by Henri Decae, a remarkable opening shot, narrated by the novelist and screenwriter Jean Cocteau, introducing Renèe Cosima as Dargelos and Eduard Dermit as Paul, filmed at the historic Lycée Condorcet in Paris, from Les Enfants Terribles, 1950.

Vacationing at the beach, the uncle (Roger Gaillard) brings nephew Gerard (Jacques Bernard) and his two weird, orphaned friends (Nicole Stéphane and Edouard Dermit as Elisabeth and Paul) to a shop, where novelist, screenwriter and narrator Jean Cocteau further describes their strange game, in Les Enfants Terribles, 1950, directed by Jean-Pierre Melville.

Stir-crazy Elisabeth (Nicole Stéphane) observes weird behavior by her brother Paul (Edouard Dermit), whom she’s still nursing following his snowball-fight injury, then receives his classmate Gerard (Jacques Bernard), leading to further fighting and a visit to their invalid mother, in writer Jean Cocteau and director Jean-Pierre Melville’s Les Enfants Terribles, 1950.