188. La Belle Et La Bête (The Beauty And The Beast) (1946)

Directed By Jean Cocteau

Synopsis

There's a family with three sisters, one of them does all the work. Father of said girl goes into forest goes into weird castle, picks up rose for Belle. Bête appears and wants the life of the guy or of Belle. Belle assumes responsibility and goes to the castle. Slowly falls in love. Goes back to visit her father, delays herself, beast almost dies with grief, but Belle saves him at the last moment by looking upon him with love's eyes. Bête becomes beautiful and all are happy ever after... except that guy who dies.

Review

This was a beautiful film, the set design is inspired and nothing else could have been expected from Jean Cocteau, who had long proved his mettle as an artist and all 'round Renaissance man of French artistic life. Then he tries his hand at cinema, and a great thing comes out of it. This film is stunning in all visual respects, the special effects, the make-up on the Beast, the costume and set design, and all the crazy ideas for the castle.

Where the film loses points unfortunately is in the acting, not the Beast, who poor guy is doing all he can with that make-up on, but particularly with Belle, who comes off as pretty wooden. Of course the film has this whole fairy tale thing going for it, and that justifies the one-dimensionality of the characters, but it doesn't justify bad acting. We have been so accostumed to excellent French actors that it was quite a disappointment.

Beyond that, however there is plenty to like here, and the good things about the film, it's atmosphere, inventiveness and sense of wonder do much to tip the balance in its favour. But it is not, unfortunately, perfect.

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The film is notable for its surreal quality and its ability to use existing movie technology to effectively evoke a feeling of magic and enchantment. The set designs and cinematography were intended to evoke the illustrations and engravings of Gustave Doré and, in the farmhouse scenes, the paintings of Jan Vermeer.

In 1995 composer Philip Glass composed an opera version. In its initial incarnation the musicians and singers would perform the work on stage with a restored, newly subtitled print of the film playing on a screen behind them. Belle was sung by Mezzo-Soprano Janice Felty. The current Criterion Collection DVD offers the ability to view the movie while listening to either soundtrack.

Often considered one of the finest fantasy films of all time it, to some extent, inspired the Disney animated film of the same name.

American singer-songwriter Stevie Nicks wrote her 1983 ballad "Beauty and the Beast" after screening the film for the second time.

Belle goes into the castle: