Beauty and The Beast (1946)

[Jezebel38]

What an amazing, shudderingly powerful experience . .
I've tried since my teenage years to catch up with La Belle et La Bete, and came annoyingly close on several occasions; I am pleased that I persisted . . and gratified that it was all worth it, and did not disappoint . . even for a minute.

Klondike - I'm so happy you finally caught up with this film, and your comments bring such a smile to my face as I recall my own amazement upon viewing this enchanting film for the first time.

Concert hall fans will be interested to know that the score was composed by Georges Auric, one of the reknowned "French Six" (or Les Six). It was Cocteau that got Auric started in soundtrack compositions with his earlier Le Sang d'un Poète, a career that would grow to include Roman Holiday, Moulin Rouge and The Lavender Hill Mob among so many others.

Moraldo - The musical passages, as well as the lack thereof, in this film add much to the other-worldly aspect of the castle scenes. I was unaware Auric did the score for Roman Holiday - I will have to pay attention next time I view that film.

[mrsl]

Moraldo:

How can you be dumbstruck? Sometimes I think you and I are crossing the same bridge only in different dimensions. What you quoted is exactly what you followed up with. Vanity and envy are French emotions to me, they are 'prissy' emotions.

Johnm:

You come from a whole different planet than I do. The kids on my world would have laughed you back home if you suggested they watch not only B&B. . . but in FRENCH!!!??!? We would have piled you in our red Flyer wagons and sent you flying downhill to the closest creek.

jdb:

I was into Frankie and Annette too, and obviously still have not been prepared for Cocteau.

AS for darker sides, Disney, gladly for me, sweetened up a lot of the gruesomeness of fairy tales. All those ogres, step mothers, witches, and bad fairies casting their awful spells. Some of it couldn't be changed, and rightly so. As much as I love Bambi, Felice and Thumper, I wouldn't admire it as much without the emotion of shock when Mama was shot by MAN! . . . Equally vital is crying my eyes out as Mama rocked Dumbo to sleep with that friggin lullaby - there wasn't a dry eye in the whole theater, including the boys, although they all claimed it was salt from the popcorn. Personally I thank gawd for Mr. Disney because I may be a hard headed old hag, but I prefer my little ones to learn about sharing from Goldilocks and the Three Bears rather than a spoiled brat who lives in the Plaza in New York. Not that she is really so bad, just sometimes she rankles me. Heck, I'm just now getting my dolly into reading the Little House on the Prairie books, that's how much I appreciate the reading matter from mine, and my kids generations over the (*&^)((&^ they offer nowadays.

Anne

[klondike]

Anne wrote:
> "The kids on my world would have laughed you back home if you suggested they watch not only B&B. . . but in FRENCH!!!??!? We would have piled you in our red Flyer wagons and sent you flying downhill to the closest creek. " <

Anne, it's a good thing you didn't grow up in my neighborhood; all the toughest kids in my neck of the woods spoke French at home, where they were being raised by their tough-as-ten-penny-nails, mill-working parents, most of whom were 1st/2nd generation Canucks.
In Northern New England, Quebecois French was the language of timber camps and cargo docks and rail yards, and the men who worked in those venues were anything but prissy.
What we thought was silly, growing up, were all those dumb Italian stereotypes, shooting machine guns at the Untouchables, and weeping with joy over opera and big pots of spaghetti!

Different strokes, eh?

[mrsl]

Okay you big Canuck. That is entirely different and you know it. Hey.

People who grew up in Canada, or even some of the northern-most areas of the U.S. spoke French, but that is not what I'm talking about. Hey.

I mean the very outermost areas of Chicago, still actually within the city limits but closer to the suburbs where I lived from 5 to 13years of age, when we actually moved to a real suburb. Hey. In my neighborhood, we had second generation, Italians, Polish, Irish, Greek, German, Swedish, and Japanese, and we all played together as I said before, using the four corners as the bases for baseball. We also used a Big Oak as the counting tree for hide and seek. We could all swear in our parents language, and we might even have had some French kids there. If we had, it wouldn't have been a problem. Hey. But if one of the kids had come in one day and said "Hey, we ought to go to the Highland theater and see Beauty and the Beast. It was made in France and the people talk French, so you have to read the English words at the bottom of the screen". --- That's when the cramming into the wagons would have commenced.

I'm pretty sure if anyone else reads this, we may just have a few other folks who grew up in similar neighborhoods across the U.S. join in and add their own thoughts. Hey. Now, I'm talking about kids, not young adults in their 20's, but kids still in t-shirts, sneakers, and jeans (when those were outfits for playing in).

Anne (Hey)

[Moraldo Rubini]

Moraldo:How can you be dumbstruck? Sometimes I think you and I are crossing the same bridge only in different dimensions. What you quoted is exactly what you followed up with. Vanity and envy are French emotions to me, they are 'prissy' emotions.

1. Vanity and envy are french emotions? Have you been to Hollywood? You bring it up as if they're issues not worth exploring on film. These are issues that aren't known only to the French.
2. Prissy? I'm dumbstruck.
3. Fairy tale belongs in the venue of a cartoon?Huh? Why? The Wizard of Oz should have been a cartoon?
4. I much prefer Disney's Belle and Prince? I love them both, and in such different ways. It never occurred to me that these two versions would be in competition.
5. It's such a prissy language, it really doesn't lend itself to any emotions other than vanity and/or envy. No other emotions? To me it's one of the most beautiful sounding languages. It conjures the romance of Les Enfants du Paradis, the epic drama of the revolution, the existentialists, the New Wave, et plus. To narrow a language down to two attributes? I'm dumbstruck.
6. I found the love story between Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton in the TV series more authentic. American commercial television "more authentic" telling a French fairy tale than one born from its own soil? I was speechless.
7. Fairy tales belong in a child's domain, adults should keep their noses out of them except to read them... I'm afraid I'll be defying you on this one...

[mrsl]

1. Vanity, envy and every other emotion is always worthy of examination in movie format.

2. When I think of French, I originally picture those lisping, fops from Louis XIV time with all the lace and satin before reality kicks in. That's why I used the word prissy but . . .

3. French IS the most beautiful and fluid SOUNDING language.

4. I don't think of Wizard of Oz as a fairy tale, I see it more as a study of human weaknesses and strengths and the battle of right vs. wrong done in a format that children can enjoy. I can't put an absolute on it, I just never saw it as a fairy tale.

5. The Disney version is the same story, so I guess you could consider them competitive.

6. You know as well as I that a love story is not just kisses, roses and dinner for two, its' caring, sharing and worrying 24/7 about the other person. And yes the TV show displayed those things.

7. I still say fairy tales (the Disney kind) do belong in childhood, and not for adults to pick apart. This B&B was not a fairy tale, it was a movie about possession, ethics, and vows, broken and otherwise which used an abnormal creature as its main character.

So, I didn't find the beast especially sympathetic. I thought he was in fact, rather churlish to object to her wanting to see her father after she said she would return. the fact is, I've never liked the beast, in any version, and again, it is a study in behavior from every character in the play. Now go calm down Moraldo before the steam blows the top of you little head off.
I never saw you get so excited before, I really hit on one of your particular favorites, huh? I still wuv yu!

Anne

[moira finnie]

Hi Anne,
Since all perception is inevitably subjective, your point of view is valid. I wonder if part of the reason that alot of people seem to loathe most foreign movies might be the subtitles. The distance that subtitles can create between the movie and the viewer can color the whole experience, which I sometimes think might be a good argument for introducing Americans to films in a dubbed form, as was once more common and now seems to be regarded as heresy by some cinephiles.

Though my French and Irish dander rises when people claim that there is an overwhelmingly "prissy" side to the "frogs", I think that may be because the American media has persisted in lazily introducing cartoonish clichés of other nationalities in their crude depictions of people who live "over there". You might want to check out some other French films and actors from the '30s-today sometime. Anything with Michel Simon, Jean Gabin, Jean-Paul Belmondo, or Gerard Depardieu is hardly likely to be prissy. These guys were tough cookies on screen and I've even seen reviewers wondering if a certain Mr. Robert Mitchum wasn't influenced in his acting style by some of them. You might find that you like these guys and their movies, very much.

Btw, having grown up in rural areas, surrounded by potato farms and very tough kids of every ethnic stripe, I can tell you that the first time I saw La Belle et la Bête I was 8 and completely enchanted, (and a bit scared) by this movie. (Same thing happened around this time when I saw Black Orpheus for the first time: Scared but fascinated). The crowd of American kids who were there that long ago day screamed and yelled and empathized with every moment on screen. Of course, both these films were shown in dubbed form, making them truly accessible for all.

Btw, when you characterized The Wizard of Oz "as a study of human weaknesses and strengths and the battle of right vs. wrong done in a format that children can enjoy" you were describing my idea of a fairy tale. Powerful, simple yet profound, and a story that will never grow old.

But hey, like those Frenchies say: "à chacun au son gout"

[jdb1]

4. I don't think of Wizard of Oz as a fairy tale, I see it more as a study of human weaknesses and strengths and the battle of right vs. wrong done in a format that children can enjoy. I can't put an absolute on it, I just never saw it as a fairy tale.

6. You know as well as I that a love story is not just kisses, roses and dinner for two, its' caring, sharing and worrying 24/7 about the other person. And yes the TV show displayed those things.

7. I still say fairy tales (the Disney kind) do belong in childhood, and not for adults to pick apart. This B&B was not a fairy tale, it was a movie about possession, ethics, and vows, broken and otherwise which used an abnormal creature as its main character.

So, I didn't find the beast especially sympathetic. I thought he was in fact, rather churlish to object to her wanting to see her father after she said she would return. the fact is, I've never liked the beast, in any version, and again, it is a study in behavior from every character in the play.
Anne

Anne, to my eyes, and as Moira has said, you've just given an excellent explanation of what a "fairy tale" is. The Wizard and B&B are stories that fit your list perfectly. I think most of us reponding here would feel that a fairy tale is not the same thing as a children's tale, for the very reasons you describe above. Maybe it's just a confusion of terminology that we are debating -- and we still wuv you, too.

[mrsl]

Moira:

I have seen all those guys and agree, let me repeat, "from Louis XIV time with all the lace and satin before reality kicks in."

You guys all missed those last 4 words. My Dad was the most prejudiced man you could meet, so I thanked heaven he was never interested in my friends, or who I played with. The only time I came into conflict was when I wanted to invite a Japanese friend to my 7th birthday party, and my MOM objected, so I never had the party (1951). But obviously you were lucky enough to have parents who gave you a more rounded childhood education than I did. And I mean that seriously, I'm not being snide or facetious. I doubt if even though they lived into their 80's and 90's, either of them ever saw a foreign language film. To them a Broadway type play was what you saw at a Dinner in the Round playhouse.

Anyway moira "But hey, like those Frenchies say: "à chacun au son gout" - - I have no earthly idea what that means (maybe - my son is shacked up with gout in his foot????), but like Mr L used to say, "You do, and you clean it up".

jdb:

You got it right, it's definitely a matter of terminology, but I just can't think of other terms to use. To me a fairy tale is light and airy even with bad or scary stuff in it which is why I kept singling out Disney, I can't think of a word for B&B or WOO, except maybe a childrens' story with adult overtones.

Anne

[traceyk]

Most people I grew up around probably wouldn't have laughed at you for seeing a foreign film but they'd have found the desire to do so completely unfathomable. (Actually, most people I know today are the same way.) I have been a fan of fantasy and faery tales my entire life and most people I grew up with thought that was a little weird, too.

I am a HUGE Disney fan and thoroughly enjoyed the Disney version of "Beauty." (Belle is one of my favorite characters. She's intellegent, brave and she READS! Gotta love her.) And I loved the transformation of the prince at the end (and loved Shrek's parody of it as well lol) So I wanted to like Cocteau's version, but I'm not sure if I did.

The scenes in the castle are nicely surreal (love those living-arm-sconces) but why bother with all those scenes featuring the sisters? Just establish they are greedy you-know-whats and move on. I would have preferred more interaction between Belle and La Bete. And what happened to the brother? Last we saw of him, he was clinging to a roof while Belle went soaring off into the clouds with her Prince.

But maybe I'm missing the point?

And Anne, "à chacun au son gout" means something like "To each his own." French idioms are just plain weird. Seriously. I mean what sort of people whip cats and drown fish?



[/i]