BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
US, 1991, 85 minutes, Colour.
Voices of Paige O'Hara, Robby Benson, Jerry Orbach, Angela Lansbury, David Ogden Stiers.
Directed by Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise.
Beauty and the Beast is a wonderful entertainment. The Disney Studios have made many animated fairy tales over the decades from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to Sleeping Beauty in the '50s to The Little Mermaid in 1989. Beauty and the Beast was actually nominated for Best Film Oscar for 1991. The plot, the animation, the songs and score (Oscar winners from Howard Ashman and Alan Mencken, also of The Little Mermaid), the humans, animals, the comedy are very well done - especially with lively candles, clocks, teapots and cups (with voices such as those of Jerry Orbach, David Ogden Stiers and Angela Lansbury).
The story has been frequently filmed - by Jean Cocteau in the '40s, as a telemovie with George C. Scott and Trish Van Devere in the '70s, and is a fable of love, self-sacrifice and seeing beyond the surface. Psychologists remind us that these tales are highly symbolic for understanding of life stories. This treatment of the tale has all these elements.
1.The popularity and acclaim? Awards?
2.The Disney tradition of animating fairy tales? Animation and drawing styles, story and plot, the characters, comedy, elements of fear? The musical score and songs?
3.The quality of the animation, in the Disney tradition? The crisp drawing? The backgrounds? The inventiveness with the characters? The Broadway staging of the songs? The Busby Berkley design of the musical, Be Our Guest?
4.The quality of the score, the range of songs: the opening with Belle and her appreciation of the town, Gaston's vanity song, Be Our Guest, the title song, the song of seeing something more in the Beast, the final song of attack by the villagers?
5.The qualities of the fairy tale: the prologue and the voice-over, the stained-glass windows, the telling of the tale, the arrogant prince, the old woman, the enchantress? The prince transformed into the Beast? His servants all transformed? The castle becoming dark? The rose and its petals? Belle, the intellectual heroine, her inventor father, the vain Gaston? The imprisonment, Belle giving her life for her father? The interaction between Belle and the Beast? Care, concern, his letting her go to her father? The rescue from the ferocious wolves? The father and his being taken to the asylum? The lynching party and the attack on the castle? Gaston and the confrontation? Belle's return and her love, the transformation? The fairytale happy ending?
6.The Beast, the eternal youth, his brusque arrogance with the old woman? The psychology of the beast, arrogance, temper? Lacking the feminine? The rose as a symbol? His despair? His manner, with Mrs Potts, with Lumiere, with Codsworth? His taking of her father, imprisoning him? Belle coming to the castle, the confrontation, his anger? Her fear, his demands for the meal? Her wanting to escape - and rescuing her from the wolves? The servants trying to civilise him and give him advice? His gift of the library to Belle? Their sharing together, the transformation? His allowing her to leave after her seeing her father in the mirror? The attack, his despair, the confrontation with Gaston, the fight? His delight in Belle's return? Her tending of him previously with the wolf wounds? Tending him after the fight? His seeming death, transformed into new life?
7.Belle, her place in the village, her intelligence, the opening song, reading the books, the people's comments on her? Gaston assuming that she would marry him? Her spurning to him, her devotion to her father? His going off to the market? His inventions? His imprisonment, her self-sacrifice? Her staying, meeting the servants, delighting in them? Her reaction to the beast and his dominance? The library, her finding the west wing and the rose? The escape, the pursuit by the wolves and her rescue by the Beast? Tending his wounds? The change, her sharing with him, the gift of the library? Seeing her father, being allowed to return? The asylum, the confrontation with Gaston? Locked in the house, Chip and his getting them out with the invention? The return, her love, the reward?
8.Gaston and his macho style, the vanity of his lyrics? Preening himself, looking into the mirror, the girls swooning over him? His presumption about the wedding? His sidekick and the comedy, his hitting him? The failed wedding, his vengeance, the asylum? The plan to make Belle marry him? The lynch party, leading the attack, the song? The fight with the Beast, his fear, treachery, his death?
9.Belle's father, the eccentric inventor, the invention and its working? Going to the market, with the horse, losing the way? The viciousness of the wolves, his taking refuge in the castle, the encounter with the Beast and his imprisonment? Belle giving herself for him? His return home, the threats by the asylum? Belle coming to the rescue? The happy ending?
10.The servants: Mrs Potts and her very British motherly teapot style in Angela Lansbury's voice? Chip as the young cup? His going to the rescue of Belle and her father? Lumiere with the candle with the Maurice Chevalier touch? Codsworth as the very British clock? The duster? The chest of drawers? Their all defending the castle - and the humorous battle with the villagers?
11.The people in the village, ordinary, their everyday work life, the market, the bakers? The three young girls and their adoration of Gaston? Being roused up against the Beast?
12.Fairy tales, perennial truths? The blend of the serious and the comic?
