1946: La Belle et la Bête

La Belle et la Bête (1946, Cocteau) 10/10


Was there a greater and more definitive “Renaissance” man of the early 20th century than Jean Cocteau? Noted today for his surrealist films, Cocteau was also an esteemed sculptor, painter, playwright, essayist and set designer.

Beginning with 1930’s Blood of a Poet, he followed in the footsteps of his Spanish contemporaries Salvador Dali and Luis Buñuel in creating a series of groundbreaking experimental films that challenged contemporary social mores and broke artistic boundaries. Yet today Cocteau’s reputation is less publicly renowed than either Dali or Buñuel: often relegated to the annals of academia and the reclusive world of the cineaste. But there is one film in Cocteau’s canon which the vast majority of the general public have at least felt the impact of in popular culture.

When in 1991, Disney released Beauty and the Beast the majority of its viewers did not realize that as with the company’s 1973 adaptation of Robin Hood, the studio had borrowed heavily from an earlier classic picture. While elements of Disney’s Robin Hood border on plagarism with Michael Curtiz’ excellent 1938 Errol Flynn vehicle The Adventures of Robin Hood, there is a less overt, but still noticeable tinge to Disney’s animated version of Beauty and the Beast and Jean Cocteau’s masterful 1946 film La Belle et la Bête.

Although there have been countless versions of Madame de Beaumont’s 1756 fairytale- ranging from Czech adaptations to animated direct-to-video features-Cocteau’s film is not only the most faithful to the source material, but also the definitive cinematic account of de Beaumont’s story. In Cocteau’s adaptation there are no singing candlesticks, Celine Dion ballads or puns on the Baroque period. Instead there is an innate childlike joy fused with an artistic complexity both in terms of its visuals and narrative. Like Marcel Carne’s Les Enfants du Paradis released a year earlier, this is a triumph of style and auteuristic vision over lamentable filmmaking conditions.

With postwar France left impoverished and in tatters by the Second World War, Cocteau’s film is a perfect example of the power of an artist’s vision overcoming tragic circumstances to create an incredible artistic statement. Malfuctioning equipment, limited electricity, insufficient costume materials and an unsure producer could have easily sent Cocteau’s vision to a cinematic wasteland. Today, it is even difficult to imagine the difficulties which beset Cocteau in finding pristine white blankets for the film’s laundry scene. But as with Les Enfants du Paradis, one does not see the supply shortages and ration cards. Instead the mis-en-scene is bolstered by Georges Auric’s blithe score, Hagop Arakelian’s superb make-up and the magisterial beauty of Henri Alekan’s gorgeous cinematography. Together with Cocteau’s vision they create a lush visual essay brimming with enchantment, intelligence and a serene innocence.

In deploying his most orthodox narrative, Cocteau created a film accessible to all audiences, but specifically children. With the devastation around France, one can see in Cocteau’s film both a reprieve from this desolate world, but also the formation of a morality play on diametric feelings of goodness and greed within the human soul. The results are entertaining, aesthetically stunning, yet inclusively didactic. The viewer’s eyes, heart, mind and soul are all richly rewarded by Cocteau’s efforts.

La Belle et la Bête tells the story of a bankrupt merchant (Marcel Andre) who believes his ship has literally come in to port. Presuming that the sale of his goods from the ship will allow him and his family to live in comfort, the merchant is dismayed to find that his creditors have already ransacked the ship. At home, his materialistic eldest daughters and foolish son have already overspent beyond their father’s means; the latter in particular signing his gambling debts from a local tavern over to another creditor who successfully sues the boy’s father for payment: leaving him in further destitution. Only his youngest daughter Belle (Josette Day) truly cares for her father: asking for only love and simple gifts, rather than the fine jewels and lavish clothes desired by her siblings.

When riding back from the port on a dark, foggy night the merchant loses his way and stumbles on a castle filled with eccentricities and magic. Upon exiting the castle, he plucks a rose from a bush for his daughter Belle; only to be reprimanded by the castle’s owner: a Beast (Jean Marais) who informs the merchant he will die for his act of theft within three days. Overcome by grief, the ill merchant returns home to tell his family. Desperate to not have her father die, Belle agrees to take her father’s place and returns to the castle to confront the Beast. Soon, the Beast falls in love with Belle, but she does not reciprocate or acquiesce to his marraige proposals out of her fidelity to a handsome prince named Avenant (also Marais). When Belle’s father becomes ill, she pleads with the Beast to let her return for one week: testing not only the Beast’s faith in Belle, but also Belle’s faith in the morality of the outside world.

At the core of Cocteau’s film is a focus on internal and external beauty. With his animalistic appearance, the Beast is hardly an attractive fellow in comparison to the matinee idol visage of Avenant. But with his tenderness, compassion and thoughtfulness, the Beast is the antithesis to the vain and greedy Avenant. Although Cocteau successfully disguises his lead actor in Arakelian’s fantastic make-up, his decision to have Marais cunningly play both Avenant and the Beast not only enhances Cocteau’s adherance to the source material, but also addresses his central thesis on the internal versus the external in regard to codes of beauty.

Furthermore, Cocteau’s overt critique of materialism would hold great resonance amongst his peers not only due to his leftist sympathies, but also for his educative application of common sense in a nation filled with material paucity. While the merchant’s other children beg for illustrious gifts, Belle asks for a simple rose. Her choice of gift exemplifies her preference for the natural world in terms of commodities, behaviour and ideals. Her siblings on the otherhand prefer the artificial and falsely adhere to the belief that the artificial wins over nature. Even the Beast to a certain extent is drawn to this notion by offering Belle pearls and fine clothing. She is taken aback by the Beast’s generosity, but prefers gifts of kindness such as the opportunity to visit with her ailing father.

Upon visiting her father, Belle attempts to offer the necklace to one of her gormandizing sisters. However in a brilliant piece of special effects, when the item is placed in her sister’s hand it turns into a thorny weed; only for it to return to its normalized state once it hits the floor. The magic wrought in these items represents the inner sanctum of the bearer’s soul. When Belle stares in the Beast’s mirror, we only see her goodness; when her sister’s attempt the same feat, they turn into beasts themselves.

Much of the enchantment of La Belle et la Bête is to be found in its superlative inducing special effects, make-up,costumes and production design. Despite the paucity of props, Cocteau is able to create a haunting, surreal world in which halls are lit by candlebras that are human arms, while human faces smirk and grin from fireplaces and walls. The layered symbolism in these simple props transcends to Cocteau and Alekan’s aesthetic palette of ideas; concepts which are never addressed in a forceful method, nor fashioned to insult the audience’s intelligence.

From the film’s opening credits scrawled on a school blackboard, we (the audience) get the sense of Cocteau’s intentions to spread his message to the masses and particularly to children. This notion is re-inforced when Cocteau himself abruptly stops the film in order to provide an opening prologue informing his audience of his intentions and the childlike sense of wonder, which one’s heart, mind and soul must be filled with in order to truly appreciate the picture. In the film’s visual construction, Cocteau appears to have researched, analyzed and dissected all modes of previous cinema (from the silent era to the present) in order to provide an aesthetic template with which to work alongside to provide cinematic consistency, yet simultaneously break new ground. Naturally, the results are astounding.

Here, Alekan creates a romantic blend of exterior impressionism and interior gothic tones heightened by the film’s extraordinary special effects and variety of peculiar angles. In arguably Alekan’s greatest sequence in the film, the arrival of Belle is remarkably shot in perhaps the most romantic application of slow-motion ever committed to celluloid. It is this type of exquisite eye for detail and ability to harness light, which Alekan would later bring to Wim Wenders’ masterpiece Wings of Desire: another tale of unrequited love in which Alekan is able to confer basic human emotions through a rich and endearing form of photography. The extraordinary performances of Josette Day and Jean Marais add further endearing qualities of hope, compassion and humanity to the picture.

At the denouement of La Belle et la Bête, when love conquers all, it is interesting to note the reaction Cocteau received in the period following the film’s initial release. Although not overtly negative, many viewers sighed in letters to Cocteau about the transformation of the Beast: dismaying their sadness at the loss of the title character in exchange for a glistening matinee idol. Unbeknowst to them however, their collective disconsolation pleased the surrealist filmmaker. In an essay he later wrote about the film, Cocteau confided to his readership that their unified grief was the exact emotional response he had wished to lure from his viewers. For while they were initially afraid of the Beast, they too like Belle came to see beyond his looks and realized that in our internalized bodies there lies the great possibilities for one to become either a beauty or a beast.

Along with Carne’s Les Enfants du Paradis, one of the greatest French films ever and one of the most beautiful artistic endeavours period.

* La Belle et la Bête is available through Criterion Home Video

Copyright 2007 8½ Cinematheque