Jean Marais in the context of Muse

L'Aigle à deux têtes is a French play in three acts by Jean Cocteau, written in 1943 and first performed in 1946. It is known variously in English as The Eagle with Two Heads, The Eagle Has Two Heads, The Two-Headed Eagle, The Double-Headed Eagle, and Eagle Rampant. The title refers to the double-headed eagle of heraldry. Cocteau also directed a film of his play which appeared in 1948.

Cocteau said that he took his inspiration for the play from the separate stories of Ludwig II of Bavaria and of the Empress Elisabeth of Austria. Ludwig was found drowned in Lake Starnberg in Bavaria in circumstances which have never been satisfactorily explained. Elisabeth was stabbed in the heart by an assassin while out walking in Geneva. For his portrait of the Queen, Cocteau drew upon the portrait of Elisabeth given by Remy de Gourmont in his Promenades littéraires. He was also concerned to create characters which called for a grand style of acting in a tradition which he saw as being in decline in French theatre. The performances of Edwige Feuillère and Jean Marais in the first French production were an essential part of Cocteau's conception of the play.

Beauty and the Beast (French: La Belle et la Bête – also the UK title) is a 1946 French surrealist romantic fantasy film directed by French poet and filmmaker Jean Cocteau. Starring Josette Day as Belle and Jean Marais as the Beast, it is an adaptation of the 1757 story Beauty and the Beast, written by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont and published as part of a fairy tale anthology.

The plot of Cocteau's film revolves around Belle's father, who is sentenced to death for picking a rose from the Beast's garden. Belle offers to go back to the Beast in her father's place. The Beast falls in love with her and proposes marriage on a nightly basis, which she refuses. Belle eventually becomes more drawn to the Beast, who tests her by letting her return home to her family, and telling her that if she does not return to him within a week, he will die of grief.

Orpheus (French: Orphée [ɔʁfe] ; also the title used in the UK) is a 1950 French romantic fantasy tragedy film directed by Jean Cocteau and starring Jean Marais. It is the central part of Cocteau's Orphic Trilogy, alongside The Blood of a Poet (1930) and Testament of Orpheus (1960). Set in contemporary Paris, the film is a variation on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, and is partially based on Cocteau's 1926 play of the same title.

Testament of Orpheus (French: Le testament d'Orphée) is a 1960 black-and-white film with a few seconds of color film spliced into it. Directed by and starring Jean Cocteau, who plays himself as an 18th-century poet, the film includes cameo appearances by Pablo Picasso, Jean Marais, Charles Aznavour, Jean-Pierre Leaud, and Yul Brynner. It is considered the final part of The Orphic Trilogy, following The Blood of a Poet (1930) and Orphée (1950).

One critic described it as a "wry, self-conscious re-examination of a lifetime's obsessions" with Cocteau placing himself at the center of the mythological and fictional world he spun throughout his books, films, plays and paintings. The film includes numerous instances of "double takes", including one scene where Cocteau, walking past himself, looks back to see himself in what was described by one scholar as "a retrospective on the Cocteau œuvre".

The Eagle with Two Heads (French title L'Aigle à deux têtes) is a 1948 French drama film directed by Jean Cocteau. It was adapted from his own play L'Aigle à deux têtes which was first staged in Paris in October 1946, retaining the principal actors Edwige Feuillère and Jean Marais from the original theatre production.