Other Titles • Beauty and the Beast • La Belle et la bête (1946) • Es war (1947) • Es war einmal (1947)
Synopses for Beauty and the Beast (1946)
1.
Visionary filmmaker and poet Jean Cocteau responded to the terrors and creative constraints of occupied France with this elaborately realized take on the classic fairy tale BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. Suggested by his longtime collaborator and muse, French actor Jean Marais, the cinematic version of the fable first penned by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont became Cocteau’s most celebrated film. Cocteau renders the story of a gentlehearted beast in love with a simple and beautiful girl in the style of the luminous paintings of Dutch master Vermeer. From the quaint and humorous scenes of Beauty’s happy home to the ominous surreal spectacle of the Beast’s enchanted estate, Cocteau transforms the simple tale of tragic love into a surreal vision of death, desire, and beauty. Marais is chilling as the lonely and tormented beast, projecting a wounded love for the glacial yet endearing Beauty (Josette Day), whose simple request for a rose from her father brings tragedy crashing down on her whole family. Cocteau expands upon the cinematic inventiveness first seen in his masterpiece BLOOD OF A POET with mirrors made of water, living statues, and candelabras fashioned from living arms, transforming a children’s fable into a complex and radiant cinematic classic.
2.
This masterpiece by the poet of cinema, Jean Cocteau, has enchanted audiences for more than fifty years with its surreal beauty and magical visual effects. Josette Day and Jean Marais shine in the definitive filmed version of the classic romantic tale.
3.
Once upon a time, in a world of magic and wonder, the true love of a beautiful girl may finally dispel the torment of feral but gentle-hearted beast. "Beauty and the Beasts (La Belle et la Bete) is a landmark feat of cinematic fantasy, in which master filmmaker Jean Cocteau conjures spectacular visiosn of enchantment, desire, and death that have never been equaled.
4.
La Belle et La Bete 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, Amazon.com
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