La villa Santo Sospir ( 1952 )

While Jean-Pierre Melville was shooting The Terrible Children (1950), Mrs Francine Weisweiller met Jean Cocteau. Shortly after that meeting, the owner invited the director to spend a vacation in her villa. Before long, however, Jean Cocteau, who felt he was suffering from artistic inactivity, proposed to draw something in the living room. The result was Apollo's head--the Greek god of music, poetry, and art--that adorned the fireplace. That is how Cocteau began painting the walls of Villa Santo Sospir, which means "sacred sigh". In total, Cocteau created around two hundred drawings, or "tattoos" as he used to call them.—Nick Riganas