Beauty and The Beast (1946) - Jean Cocteau, René Clément
Related: 1946 - beauty and the beast trope - Jean Cocteau - French cinema - film - monster - ugly - zoophilia
Beauty and The Beast (1946) - Jean Cocteau, René Clément [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Description
Beauty and the Beast (in French: La Belle et la Bête) is a French film, made in 1946, based on the fairy tale "Beauty and the Beast". The film was directed by Jean Cocteau, and starred his gay lover Jean Marais as the Beast and Josette Day as Beauty.
The score was by Georges Auric.
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.
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. The current Criterion Collection DVD offers the ability to view the movie while listening to either version. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauty_and_the_Beast_%281946_film%29 [Dec 2005]
Amazon review
Beauty and the Beast is one of the all-time great movie fantasies, and one of the most gorgeous pictures ever made. It was the first feature film by French director Jean Cocteau, a writer, poet, and painter with ties to the surrealists. (In fact, his first film, The Blood of a Poet, was delayed after the scandal caused by L'Age D'Or, made by his fellow surrealists Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali.) The haunting, surreal visuals (candelabra made of human hands, for example) and a sensitive performance by Jean Marais as the Beast imbue the film with an indelible, mythical power. --Jim Emerson for Amazon.com
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