Film Review: La Belle et la Bête

Figure 1.

Released in 1946, Jean Cocteau’s take on Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Baumont’s fairy tale La Belle et la Bête, is far from being a sterile adaptation. Although disregarded as too formal by surrealists, the imaginative ideas deployed by the art department nevertheless bring a new dimension of eeriness to the popular story.   

At the beginning of the film, the director asks from the viewers to watch his work through the eyes of their inner child. It is indeed only when we stop questioning what we see that his world becomes believable and that we can embrace what makes the heart of the fable: the almost parallel universe of the Beast, seemingly weaved from subconscious thoughts. In his review, Derek Malcolm explains what makes the movie unconventionally fantastical: “Alekan's black-and-white photography was sharp and unfuzzy, set in a credible French country landscape that contains not just the realistic home of Beauty but also the weird, enchanted domicile of the Beast. It could almost be a documentary - which allows us to believe anything Cocteau asks of us.” (Malcolm D., 1999)

While Belle’s world, anchored in reality, is bathed in sunlight, the realm of the Beast explores the possibilities offered by chiaroscuro and negative spaces. Playing with delicate contrast between shadows and shimmery highlights, the interior of his castle is based around Christian Bérard’s chalk drawings, where blackness is used to suggest rather than show.

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In the same spirit, the set doesn’t need to be fully constructed to evoke the Beast’s world, which is why it works so well as poetic place that exists outside the laws of logic. “Jean Cocteau dresse alors son film comme une scène de théâtre sur laquelle seraient disposés des objets symboliques censés rendre compte d’un décor que nous ne verrons jamais. – Jean Cocteau dresses his film like a theatre stage upon which symbolic objects are placed to represent a set we’ll never get to see.”  (de Parscau P., 2008)

By deciding to leave most of the location empty, the castle staircase, fireplace, moving statues and doorframes stand out strongly against the neutral background plunged into obscurity. Similarly, the living human arms that serve the occupants seem to float around the characters, detaching themselves on dark walls. In Belle’s new bedroom, the heavy shadows are replaced by intricate, lush vegetation in the middle of which furniture emerge. This set, like a hazy dream, blurs poetically the line between nature and architecture by bringing the outside inside.
All these scattered elements are enough to transport the audience into a world of enchantment, just as we often generate unfinished images in our mind when being told a story. As Cocteau himself expresses it: "Rien n’est plus beau que d’écrire un poème avec des êtres, des visages, des mains, des lumières, des objets qu’on place à sa guise – Nothing is more beautiful than writing a poem with beings, faces, hands, lights and objects that are positioned as one pleases." (Cocteau J., 1946)

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The Beast’s residence truly counts as one of the most wonderful places in the cinema, Cocteau and his team going as far as manipulating time inside his domain to make it feel even more otherworldly. Amongst the film's most oneiric scenes sits an exquisite slow motion sequence of the arrival of Belle, where her trailing cloak flutters graciously as she is being drawn inside the castle, spectral voices accompanying her on the way.

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Biobliography

Cocteau, Jean. (1946) Journal d’un film : La Belle et la Bête. At: http://atmospheres53.org/docs/la_belle_et_la_bete.pdf (Accessed on 20/11/14)

De Parscau, P. (2008) La Belle et la Bête de Jean Cocteau. At: http://cinecri.artblog.fr/292005/La-Belle-et-la-Bete-de-Jean-Cocteau/ (Accessed on 20/11/14)

Malcolm, D. (1999) Jean Cocteau: La Belle et La Bête At: http://www.theguardian.com/film/1999/jul/01/1 (Accessed on 20/11/14)

Illustration List

Figure 1. Beauty and the Beast (1946) [Poster] At:
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-beauty-and-the-beast-1946 (Accessed on 23/11/14)

Figure 2. Christian Bérard Sketch (1946) [Concept Art] At: http://theredlist.com/wiki-2-24-525-970-971-view-1940s-4-profile-christian-bere.html (Accessed on 20/11/14)

Figure 3. Christian Bérard Sketch (1946) [Concept Art] At: http://www.dieu-bleu.com/index.php?id=78 (Accessed on 20/11/14)

Figure 4. La Bête portant la Belle Still. (1920) From: La Belle et la Bête. Directed by: Cocteau, J. [Film still] France: Lopert Pictures. At: http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2137-monsters (Accessed on 24/11/14).

Figure 5. Belle's arrival Still. (1920) From: La Belle et la Bête. Directed by: Cocteau, J. [Film still] France: Lopert Pictures. At: https://mubi.com/films/beauty-and-the-beast (Accessed on 24/11/14).