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The original and the best: Disney's animated classic Beauty and the Beast |
Directors: Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise
Cast: Paige O’Hara (Belle), Robby Benson (The Beast),
Richard White (Gaston), Jerry Orbach (Lumière), David Ogden Stiers (Cogsworth),
Angela Lansbury (Mrs Potts), Bradley Pierce (Chip), Rex Everhart (Maurice),
Jesse Conti (Le Fou)
After decades of average or forgettable films, in the early
90s Disney had a sudden renaissance. From 1989 to 1998, the studio was a
veritable hit factory, with films from The
Little Mermaid to Mulan, via
classics like The Lion King and new
ideas like Hercules all being lapped
up by audiences. Perhaps the most widely loved (and maybe even the best!) of
this era was Beauty and the Beast.
Like all the best Disney films, the story is traditional with
a modern twist. Belle (wonderfully voiced by Paige O’Hara) is a young woman in
a small provincial town who wants so much more than spending her time dodging
the unwanted attentions of handsome local hero Gaston. When her eccentric
father Maurice is imprisoned in a mystical castle by a terrifying Beast (Robby
Benson, who combines sensitivity and ferocity), she agrees to take his place,
while the Beast (and his enchanted servants) all hope she might break the spell
placed on them by falling in love with him.
This was the first animated film to ever be nominated for
Best Picture, back in the days of only five nominees and it was hard to sneak
onto the list if you weren’t a heavy-going “important” piece of film-making. If
that’s not a testament to its greatness, I’m not sure what is. It’s one of the
best mixes of Disney magic: charming, delightful, sweet, funny and exciting. It
has a heroine who feels real, independent and relatable and a hero you empathise
with, even while he behaves badly. It’s got a villain who first seems an
arrogant blow-hard before his real brutishness is revealed. All this in a very
romantic, engrossing storyline, with a host of supporting characters it’s
impossible not to like.
So why does this work so well? It’s sweepingly, lusciously
drawn and it drips romance and humanity. Everything stems from those central
characters, and the amount of empathy we feel for them. Like all great films,
this knows without characters we invest in, nothing else works – no matter how
many great numbers and funny lines there are (and there are plenty of both!).
Belle could have easily been either a flighty romantic or an
aloof autodidact, but the film crafts her into a grounded romantic, dreaming of
more but knuckling down and dealing with the hand life has dealt her. Facing a
life of captivity she resolves to do what she can to make her life bearable.
She’s determined and independent and exhibits genuine intellectual curiosity
alongside her empathy. She feels real, and you invest in her reactions to
things because those reactions feel normal.
An even bigger challenge is the Beast, but it’s triumphant
in the handling of this tricky character. He is ferocious, but the film quickly
and efficiently makes clear his anger is based in pain and vulnerability, and
intense isolation. Careful shots establish his self-loathing – his slashing of
a painting of his pre-transformation face couldn’t be much clearer. Even at his
most furious, we gets quiet moments of vulnerability. The animation of the
Beast is perfect – his face is fierce, but his eyes are wonderfully expressive.
His facial features at key moments relax and fold in to show someone far more
gentle. He’s like everyone on a first date, scared to express his deeper
feelings. The animators marvellously capture both his power and surprising
delicacy. His boyish enthusiasm is infectious – his excitement in gifting Belle
the library is heartwarming. In fact he’s so endearing and engaging a
character, I think everyone feels a twinge of disappointment when he is
replaced by a human being in the final scenes!
Revolving around these two is a wonderful cast of engaging
characters. The primary servants in the plot – Lumière, Cogsworth and Mrs Potts
– are all strong, unique and three-dimensional characters with more than enough
depth to eschew their basic character traits (Cogsworth’s name even rhymes with
jobsworth, Lumière is a charming rogue and Mrs Potts a motherly matron) to
become characters we end up caring deeply for, that feel real.
The film also borrows from Jean Cocteau’s La Belle et la Bete to create the
character of Gaston, possibly one of the most interesting villains in Disney.
Drawn with a certain conventional handsomeness (although he looks smug enough
for you know he’s a wrong ‘un from the start), Gaston is a character who
questions many of the assumptions made linking popularity and handsomeness with
goodness. He’s also a character who grows measurably darker through the film
due to his own choices, rather than being inherently villainous from the start.
It’s all part of the richness of the world the film creates
– everything feels natural and all the characters real and understandable. Maybe
that’s partly why it works so well – it’s a film that is animated, rather than
a cartoon. With a tight plot, good pacing and a clear focus, it’s focus is on
emotion and characterisation, and it avoids cheap laughs, with comedy growing
organically. Because the characters themselves are so compelling, the events
carry huge dramatic force – when Belle is threatened by wolves, we genuinely
fear for her; when the heartbroken Beast can barely rouse himself to fight
Gaston we are overwhelmed with pity and concern.
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Warmth and humanity in the drawing of the characters, makes their stories so affecting |
Of course it is also a cartoon, and much of the triumph of
it is based in the animators’ successes. The imagery is gorgeous, the detail in
each frame is wonderful, the design of the castle is fantastic (we’ve already
talked about the influences of Cocteau’s film, but it’s clear again here). The
famous ballroom scene is wonderful – the “camera work” marvellous, the creation
of the ballroom awe inspiring (genuinely we all thought it was real at the time!).
Time and again the filmmakers use inspired framing and composition that conveys
the emotion. The performances they draw from their characters is exceptional –
the expressiveness given to all of the characters, from Belle and the Beast to
the faceless tankards in the castle, is brilliant. You can freeze-frame any
single scene from the movie and be able to instantly identify how every
character feels.
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The famous ballroom, a sweeping series of camera shots and a landmark in computer illustration |
This is the true Disney magic: this world is real, because
everyone in it feels so alive. It captures your heart, from its marvellous
stained-glass opening telling the backstory, to the triumphant swelling score
that meets the ending. I’ve barely mentioned the songs, but each one is brilliant,
an instantly recognisable, pleasurable earworm – in fact, this film may have
the best songs of any Disney film in the canon. Beauty and the Beast is so good that, never mind being nominated
for best picture, it arguably would have won
in many years (it lost to The Silence of
the Lambs: it’s hard to imagine a film more tonally different!). Endlessly
enchanting, charming, warm, funny, moving and exciting, this is a masterpiece and
a landmark in Disney animation.
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