Screened: January 8, 2008
Format: DVD - Criterion (2003)
Selected By: Libby
Jean Cocteau was regarded as one of the leading French cultural figures of the early twentieth century when he created his 1946 fantasy Beauty and the Beast. Although he worked as a director, novelist, playwright, and designer, Cocteau considered himself first and foremost a poet, and a poetic sensibility runs throughout the output of his versatile career. A loose adaptation of an eighteenth century French fairy tale, Beauty and the Beast was Cocteau’s second film, and it shares the surrealism that characterizes much of his work. Far removed from the horrors of post-war Europe, yet infused with rich social and political commentary, Beauty challenged audiences to demand more from the fantasy genre. Cocteau was explicit about the film’s gender and sexual subtexts, and its deconstruction of traditional fairy tales motifs.
In Beauty, Cocteau utilizes baroque design and technical wizardry to create a phantasmagorical landscape where reality and fantasy mingle. The banality of the film’s opening sequences stand in stark contrast to the Beast’s castle, where Henri Alekan’s silvery photography reveals a new wonder or chill behind every corner. That Beauty and Beast was completed at all, let alone with such opulent production design and visual effects, is a minor miracle. The film suffered from post-war shortages of everything from film stock to textiles to medicine for Cocteau himself, who was seriously ill during the production. Under five hours of stifling makeup, French heartthrob Jean Marais conjures an amazingly affecting performance as the Beast. In his monstrous visage, Marais was widely regarded by French girls and women as much more appealing than when he appeared as the handsome prince. This subversive thematic twist is, of course, exactly what Cocteau intended.
Despite Beauty and Beast’s financial success in France and internationally, Cocteau wrote that his “greatest reward†was the enthusiastic response the film received at its first screening, held not for critics or the public, but for the film studio’s technicians. Six decades later, Beauty and Beast remains a milestone in early post-war French film, and in fantasy film generally. Its ambitious artistry has influenced filmmakers across genres, yet Cocteau’s sincere, challenging approach to his source material is still all too rarely emulated.