Beauty and the Beast (1946 film)  

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Beauty and the Beast (French: La Belle et la Bête) is a French film, made in 1946, based on the fairy taleBeauty and the Beast.” The film was directed by Jean Cocteau, and starred Jean Marais in three roles, including the Beast, as well as Josette Day as Beauty. Michel Auclair played Ludovic, Beauty’s brother.

This version adds a subplot involving Belle's suitor Avenant (also played by Jean Marais), who schemes along with Belle's brother and sisters to journey to Beast's castle to kill him and capture his riches while the sisters work to delay Belle's return to the castle. When Avenant enters the magic pavilion which is the source of Beast's power, he is struck by an arrow fired by a guardian statue of the Roman goddess Diana, which transforms Avenant into Beast and reverses the original Beast's curse. When the Beast comes back to life and becomes human at the end, he transforms into a Prince Charming with Avenant's handsome features, but without his oafish behaviour. Avenant is a probable inspiration for Gaston in the Disney adaptation, but is portrayed as a less malevolent character.

The score was by Georges Auric, and the cinematography by Henri Alekan. Christian Bérard and Lucien Carré covered production design. The film was made in black-and-white.

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. The set designs and cinematography were intended to evoke the illustrations and engravings of Gustave Doré and, in the farmhouse scenes, the paintings of Jan Vermeer.

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. Belle was sung by Mezzo-Soprano Janice Felty. The current Criterion Collection DVD offers the ability to view the movie while listening to either soundtrack.

Often considered one of the finest fantasy films of all time it, to some extent, inspired the Disney animated film of the same name.

American singer-songwriter Stevie Nicks wrote her 1983 ballad "Beauty and the Beast" after screening the film for the second time.



Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Beauty and the Beast (1946 film)" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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