Katia and Marielle Labèque review – Glass’s Cocteau trilogy perfumes the air, literally
Piano arrangements of Philip Glass’s music for his operas based on the French director’s films come complete with bespoke scents
February 2024
The film club whose president has seen it all
Letter: Following an article on cinema’s best year, Mary Keane celebrates Manchester and Salford Film Societyand its 102-year-old president
March 2022
The Human Voice review – Ruth Wilson fails to connect in Jean Cocteau’s tale of despair
Ivo van Hove’s production divests this drama of emotional power and momentum, keeping us at arm’s length
July 2021
Guy Lodge's streaming and DVDs
Streaming: Pedro Almodóvar’s The Human Voice and other A-list shorts
The Spanish auteur’s joyous half-hour film The Human Voice, now on Mubi, makes you wish that more top directors would occasionally keep it brief
May 2021
The Human Voice review – Tilda Swinton on the verge in Almodóvar’s tale of despair
Swinton plays a woman abandoned by her lover in a short, affecting drama that echoes the uncertainties of lockdown
February 2021
Teenage kicks
Juno Temple's teenage obsessions: 'Brandon Flowers was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen'
The actor, who stars alongside Justin Timberlake in Palmer, recalls her love of Eminem, the magic of Jean Cocteau and why she is fascinated by corsetry
March 2020
Lucia Bosé obituary
Italian actor who appeared the films of Antonioni, Buñuel and Fellini
June 2019
From the Guardian archive
The surreal thing – fashion archive, 1988
27 June 1988 The fact is that high fashion is, and always has been, a surrealist movement
November 2018
Observer picture archive
Observer picture archive: Jean Cocteau, November 1950
Jane Bown’s first trip to Paris resulted in this memorable portrait of the French artist and writer
October 2018
Orphée review – Cocteau's classic never looks back
Jean Marais’ journey through the underworld gains new strangeness and rapture in this restoration of Jean Cocteau’s 1950 Orpheus myth
September 2018
The Human Voice review – Leanne Best delivers a tour de force of despair
Gate theatre, London Guilt, anguish and female torment simmer within a stunning star turn in this revival of Jean Cocteau’s study of a woman on the brink
July 2018
Left Bank by Agnès Poirier – existentialism, jazz and the miracle of Paris in the 1940s
A gushing love letter to the French capital features De Beauvoir, Sartre, Samuel Beckett and wave after and wave of oversexed, overpaid Americans
February 2017
Les Enfants Terribles review – dark sibling fantasy
Top-flight dancers, Javier de Frutos moves, Philip Glass score and Cocteau’s twisted tale don’t quite add up
January 2017
Les Enfants Terribles review – Javier De Frutos teases out sex-games siblings' inner damage
Les Enfants Terribles: Cocteau's scandalous siblings dance on the edge
June 2016
La Voix Humaine review – intimate invitation to a lover's betrayal
Claire Booth gives an unforgettably intense performance as the abandoned mistress in WNO’s stylish immersive Poulenc/Cocteau staging
November 2015
Readers recommend
Readers recommend: songs about glamour and style
Is it gait, cut of the jib, garb or charismatic charm? Sift through your musical wardrobes for songs that mention qualities of magnetism, prestige or allure, says Peter Kimpton
December 2014
Jane Bown: a life in photography – in pictures
Her first commission for the Observer was a portrait of philosopher Bertrand Russell in 1949. From then, Bown photographed the great and the good, the rich and the poor, the ordinary and extraordinary with a compassionate and gentle eye
November 2014
Manitas de Plata obituary
Virtuoso French Gypsy guitarist with a unique playing style and a celebrity following
October 2014
Elsa Schiaparelli: A Biography review – no ordinary fashion designer
Biographer Meryle Secrest is enthusiastic in pursuit of the elusive designer whose friends included Dalí and Hitler’s ambassador to Paris, writes Rachel Cooke
