La Belle Et La Bête (1946)

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La Belle Et La Bête 1946 was directed by Jean Cocteau and Rene Clement. Cocteau is a director mostly known for his beautiful poems, for this reason he hired another director who has more experience in creating a fantasy film. "Cocteau, a poet and surrealist, was not making a "children's film" but was adapting a classic French tale that he felt had a special message after the suffering of World War II: Anyone who has an unhappy childhood may grow up to be a Beast." (Ebert R, 1999) Not only was he trying to give a sign, he also wanted the audience to feel relaxed and forget about everything and come along in this wonderful adventure full of unrealistic, supernatural things, in other words promoting escapism.

The story is about a kind beast trapped in a kingdom because of his appearance. ‘Belle’ looks for his trapped father and takes his position. Later on, she feels drawn to him and loved being around the beast who puts her up to a test. She visits her family for a week, however if she does not return to the beast, he would die. This is a tale of “not judging a book by its cover.”

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"The music of Georges Auric accompanies the dreamy, fitful moods." (Crowther B, 1947) Agreeing with Crowther, the music was calm and had a fairy-tale mood. This is because a mix of instruments and choristers were used to create a beautiful atmospheric sound. Their tone of voice going up and down, the volume of the music used to alert us of danger that is about to happen.  The none-diegetic sounds were a little over exaggerated, for example when breaking the window or slamming the door to give a little shock to the audience. The camera angles were also intelligently used to cover up simple tricks for example, a longshot was used at the side of the wall to show the hands coming out of surfaces as servants, thus making the audience feel tricked as if they are not real human beings. "the theatrical designer Christian Berard designed the makeup, sets and costumes (his ideas were based on the illustrations of Gustav Dore)." (Ebert R, 1999) Gustav’s influence in this production is clearly seen on the beast’s make-up; the long hairs and the dark brown. The make-up artists intelligently glued certain parts of the masks on the actors face to make it look realistic. Instead of us looking at a man wearing a mask Berard painted Jean Marais’s skin brown most importantly round his eyes.

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"Cocteau uses wispy strands of lighting to magical effect and, to his credit, never attempts to fashion anything but a fairytale, inducing a childlike wonder." (Brealy L, 2000) The mise-en-scenes were well constructed particularly in the beast’s castle. Even though the setting looked beautiful, relating to what Bearly said, Cotceau idea of lighting and camera angles made the magical effects powerful for example; in the second last scene when looking at his gloves whilst walking into his garden a hard-key lighting was seen in this scene, and a longshot was used from a bird’s eye view. Thus, making the audience feel like the fairies in the garden watching him.

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In conclusion, everything was carefully thought of; the costumes, lighting, set designs and camera angles. Even though he used simple tricks Cocteau managed to use all these techniques to create something influential.

Bibliography;

Ebert, R. - https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-beauty-and-the-beast-1946

Crowther, B. - http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9B03EFD71E3EEE3BBC4C51DFB467838C659EDE

Brealy, L. - https://www.empireonline.com/movies/belle-et-la-bete-la/review/

Illustration

Fig. 1 - http://cineclap.free.fr/la-belle-et-la-bete-1946/la-belle-et-la-bete-1946-a04.jpg?lzv1sf

Fig. 2 - http://fr.web.img6.acsta.net/videothumbnails/195/378/19537834_2013091115403491.jpg

Fig.3 - https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc-oinHYAJonaXbM7WOYVhLdMmZeofpvJegRxe4lfyUXsG2oN259Daac6V-Dky1gUVBDlaZQN24Qs8u8sly0VqXjhA9NjyUuxWXPFkAI90cJ2qp4CZOKBj_5pt4ypiJOjQjCn6jF0sP38/s1600/La+Belle+et+la+Be%25CC%2582te+de+Jean+Cocteau+1946+%25284%2529.png

Fig. 4 - https://media.giphy.com/media/ANEKRbKYIeaoU/giphy.gif