|
La Belle Et La Bete [1946] | ![La Belle Et La Bete [1946]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/412ZH6CWHEL._SL75_.jpg)
 enlarge | Director: Jean Cocteau
Actors: Jean Marais, Josette Day, Marcel Andre
Studio: Bfi Video
Category: Video
Buy New: £34.95
New (2) Used (5) Collectible (2) from £5.35
Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 9004
Format: Black & White, Pal, Subtitled
Language: French (Original Language)
Rating: Parental Guidance
Media: VHS Tape
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 89
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.3 x 4.2 x 1.1
EAN: 5035673001219
ASIN: B00005QX9K
Theatrical Release Date: December 23, 1947
Release Date: November 19, 2001
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: A NEW UNSEALED SMALL BOX VIDEO
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk Review
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 Bunuel 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
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
"Don't pat me like an animal." "But you are an animal!" January 7, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Belle's father (Marcel André) has to go to town for business. He asks Belle (Josette Day) what she would like him to bring her. A Rose as there are no roses at home. On his way back from the city he must go through a mysterious forest in the evening. He stumbles upon an enchanted abode. There he is offered food and drink. On his exit the next morning he pilfers a prize rose to fulfill his daughters wish. Now he is confronted by the home owner La Bête (Jean Marais). For his indiscretion he is given the choice of giving up his life or that of his daughter. He returns home to tell the tale.
The story first written by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont is adapted by Jean Cocteau to film, also directed by Jean Cocteau.
I could expound on the great visual effects and dialog choices. But it is much better described by the voice over track on the Criterion version. You will be enchanted by this version and will come to make this your favorite.
A sad, magical and lonely Beast; a Beauty of honesty and awakening love. An incomparable film by Jean Cocteau June 7, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
"Don't be a coward; cling to life. You must fight death," Belle pleads with Beast. "Belle, if I were a man," he says, "perhaps I could do as you say. But the poor beasts who want to prove their love can only grovel on the ground and die."
This marvelous film, written and directed by Jean Cocteau, may seem to be a moody retelling of a fairy tale, but it moves much more deeply into the consequences of love, passion and trust. Please note that elements of the plot are discussed. Belle (Josette Day) and her two sisters and brother live with their father, a failing businessman who is about to be ruined. The two sisters are self-centered shrews and the brother is a wastrel. He has a friend, a tall, handsome and vapid fellow who keeps asking Belle to marry him. The father learns his last hope for a business rescue has failed. Returning home from the city, he finds himself in a mist-filled, shadowy forest. He pushes on and then it seems as if the trees are opening a path for him to a huge stone mansion. It appears empty, yet doors open for him. In the hallway he sees candelabra held by living arms. At a table set with food, hands pour wine for him. He drinks and sleeps. When he prepares to leave, still seeing no one, he finds roses growing along a path. He had promised his daughter, Belle, a rose and so he takes one...and immediately is faced with Beast (Jean Marais), covered with fur, menacing and ugly, with sharp teeth and dressed like a prince. Beast says that for taking his rose, the father must either die or send one of his three daughters to live with him. When he returns home, the father finds that his elder two daughters all have reasons not to volunteer. Only Belle says she will gladly go to save her father's life. And off she rides on a huge white horse back to the forest and into the magical home of Beast.
For most of the movie we witness the changing feelings of Belle toward Beast. He is truly a beast. He kills animals in the forest because it is his nature to kill, yet he is lonely to his soul. And Belle discovers he has a soul. In some way she doesn't understand, she is drawn to him. It's not too superficial to say that the Beast is discovering love and that Beauty is discovering a kind of passion which is almost love, not quite pity, and which remains pure because she is honest. They see each other at 7 each evening. He asks the same question as she dines, "Will you marry me?" She begins to look forward to her time with him. Sometimes they'll walk around the mansion's grounds and talk. In time she pleads to return to her home to see her father. Because he loves her, Beast agrees she may go for a week. He will even give her the golden key to all his treasure which will be hers if he dies...and he will die if she doesn't return. The selfishness of her sisters, the greed of her brother and the well-intentioned bravado of his friend all conspire to keep Belle at her father's home. Cocteau eventually gives us a true and tragic joining of two hearts...but also a fairy-tale ending, yet one where we feel sad even as Beauty finds her prince. The Beast has become so sad and complex a figure, so torn by his nature, that we hope there is enough of the Beast in the Prince to keep Beauty interested.
Cocteau has concocted out of a fairy tale a complex and thoughtful look at how the deepest feelings we have about each other can change us. He has created two worlds, the sunny and superficial world of Belle's family and the misty, dark world of Beast, where magic and true feelings can happen. The whole look of the movie is filled with odd and magical scenes...those arms holding the candles and pointing the way, statues and medallions where the faces and the eyes follow Belle, the moment when Belle, unconscious, is carried by Beast into her room and as they pass through the doorway Belle's country clothes are turned into a princesses gown with jewels and pearls, Belle gliding, floating through a hallway as she explores Beast's home. Even the forest, which seemed so threatening when we first entered it with Belle's father, has come to seem much more an expression of Beast's loneliness as well as his nature. All of this has been created by human hands and human ingenuity; there were no computers around to create the effects Cocteau wanted. Knowing this, for me, adds immensely to the magic of the movie. This is not only a wonderful film to own, it's worth watching carefully if you're into how films are made.
The newly restored Criterion edition is superb. If I owned the original Criterion release, I'd be inclined to upgrade.
Cocteau Masterpiece September 5, 2006
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
The tale of Beauty and The Beast has been told in various forms for thousands of years. In cinema we have adaptations in King Kong(1933); Frankenstein(1931); Jekyl And Hyde(1932); The Phantom of the Opera(1925); The Hunchback of Notre Dame(1939); Creature From The Black Lagoon(1954) and more recently Edward Scissorhands(1990) and Shrek(2001). The tale will continue to spawn new adaptations but for me there is only one version, Jean Cocteau's `La Belle et La Bete'(1946).
La Belle et La Bete is adapted from the abridged version of the fairy tale by Madame Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont. The story is interpreted as a young woman's coming of age tale with sexual desire being regarded as beastly. Therefore any man feeling this desire would be beastly and only when she learns to regard sexual desire as natural does she find happiness and the beast is transformed into prince charming. The film has a stronger masculine quality with emphasis shifting away from Belle towards the beast's character. The film has also been interpreted in terms of the creative process of artist and muse, suffering for your art. Cocteau also includes many references to mythology (Pavilion Of Diana) pointing to the origins of the tale. The film also includes elements of the Cinderella fairy tale with the inclusion of the ugly sisters.
Jean Cocteau asks us, as an adult audience, at the start to suspend belief and see as a child, which was directed at critics whom he regarded as being too arty or intellectual, one notable being Jean-Paul Satre who had criticised Cocteau for his lack of political commitment. Cocteau replied that his only commitment was to himself and his art. (The suffering artist)
Josette Day and Jean Marais star as Beauty and the Beast respectively. Josette Day has exquisite statuesque presence, which gives her an unattainable cold quality, which is far removed from the original inquisitive naïve peasant girl of the original tale. Jean Marais gives an excellent poetic theatrical performance of the beast suffering for beauty. Jean would later act in another Cocteau masterpiece, `Orphee'(1950). Together for lack of a better word they are magical. The cinematography was by Henri Alekan (Roman Holiday; Wings Of Desire) but I believe Cocteau to be the real genius behind everything in this film: set design, lighting, structure, symbolism, multiple layers, a real auteur.
I cannot recommend this film more highly, it's in my top 10 films of all time and it's unlikely to ever leave. If you don't like this then seek help.
Magical film, essential viewing August 11, 2006
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
This film is truely magical and should be required viewing for anyone with a passing interest in cinema.
For a restored print the quality isn't that great but stick with it for a series of fantastic images and a magical tale. The image of human candalabras will stay with you for ever.
Also worth watching is the short film that visits the films locations 50 years on. I assumed it was all filmed in a studio so it just added to the magic to see that the house and castle grounds exist. And Jean Marais stil looks as handsome as ever!
 A Buyers Guide January 2, 2006
22 out of 23 found this review helpful
Okay, first and foremost this is one fantastic movie and is quite rightly seen as a clasic. Surreal, beautifuly shot and needing none of today's digital effects, la belle et la bete will take you into Jean Cocteau's world deeper every time you see it. Here are my reviews of both the BFI and Criterion restored versions. I have viewed both so I hope this will help you in deciding which version to purchase. Tbe BFI version contains the following: I give this a 3 star rating, Top marks for the film, but a very low score for the disappointing presentation of the film itself. Picture Gallery
Film Notes And Biographies
Short Film Screening At The Majestic
Commentary By Christopher Frayling
Aspect Ratio: 1.33 Full Screen
Main Language: French
Subtitles: English It also promises us a version of the film "taken from a new & restored print" A shame that this is seemingly not the case. I previously owned the above dvd and as another reviewer pointed out, the print is peppered with scratches, white flecks, holes and is so bad as to be distracting. A shame as the movie itself is wonderful. But search for the R1 Criterion Restored Edition (search for Beauty and the Beast on this very site, rather than "La belle et la Bete") The disc contains: * Available Subtitles: English
* Available Audio Tracks: French (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)
* Commentary by: writer/cultural historian Sir Christopher Frayling
* Commentary by: film historian Arthur Knight
* New high-definition transfer
* Original opera written for the film by renowned composer Philip Glass
* Screening at the Majestic, 1995 documentary featuring interviews with cast and crew
* Interview with cinematographer Henri Alekan
* Rare behind-the-scenes and publicity stills
* Original 1945 trailer narrated and directed by Cocteau
* A note about the film by Cocteau
* Film restoration demonstration
* 1995 restoration trailer
* A reprint of Mme. Leprince de Beaumont's original fable translated from the French
* Notes by Francis Steegmuller, from the definitive book Cocteau: A Biography
* New and improved English subtitle translation Far more extras, with the Phillip Glass opera among one of the highlights. I wouldn't call myself an opera fan, but the extensive instrumental pieces that run throughout Glass' alternative score are beautiful and fit the movie perfectly, taking it to another level and giving you 2 different experiences of 1 fantastic movie. Did I mention that the restoration is nothing short of beautiful? Criterion have made an admirable effort with it and it's near perfect. If you have the BFI copy, sell it immediatly and buy the Criterion restored instead. A far superior dvd in every way.
|
|
|
| |
