At Cocteau's behest of retaining our childlike sympathy in the preamble, one should enter his surreal realm of this timeless fairy tale with a tabula rasa (purging the classic Disney animation and Bill Condon’s 2017 extravaganza out of our system for a while), and for today’s new audience, a critical prerequisite of suspending one’s disbelief is to lower the expectation of the Beast’s appearance, who is played by a dreamboat Jean Marais under the camouflage of primitive make-up andclunky costumes.
To one’s sheer amazement, what Cocteau and his uncredited co-director René Clément rip-snortingly constructs is an otherworldly, bizarre setting in and around the Beast’s abode, ripe with magic touches like living statues, disembodied hands and invisible forces, which becomes all the more chilling on the strength of its black-and-white quaintness and orotund audio accompaniment, an exalted achievement which one must see with one’s own eyes to induce that astounding impression.
But contrary to the forbidding surroundings and applied with a faintly subversive flourish, the Beast is emphatically portrayed as a sad-eyed, lovelorn gentleman, without brimming with the assumed masculinity and bestiality (smoke is archly deployed here), and totally throws himself on the mercy of Belle (Day), he accords plenary trust in Belle by granting her a week’s away to visit her bedridden father (André), and bestowing her the key to his fortune in case she chooses to defer her return which will result in him dying with a broken heart, offering his sickly capitulation to a beauteous youth which rousingly empowers Belle’s discretion.
However, it is human-looking monsters that should be answerable to Belle’s delay, namely her two the-green-eyed-monster-spurred sisters Félicie (Parély) and Adélaïde (Germon), her inept brother Ludovic (Auclair) and his friend, a wooer of Belle, Avenant (Marais, again), all schemes to do away with the Beast and take their shares in his treasure trove. As expected, human avarice is punished, none other than by the arrow of Roman goddess Diana, then an inexplicable transmogrification comes about which returns a moribund Beast to his human form, aka, the Prince, when Belle falls completely under his spell of inner kindness and devotion which eventually lessens and surmounts his physical unsavoriness, a dream-comes-true of every plain-looking man and ironically, if one changes both Belle and Beast’s sexes, would the yarn's appeal remain as the same? Highly unlikely.
Granted, Cocteau sprays his own magic potion onto the story’s child-friendly prospect, and its ending comes off as both expected and unexpected, what if Belle prefers the rough-diamond Beast to the four-square Prince? A mischievous Cocteau knows the best.
P.S. for music aficionados, there is an opera version composed by Philip Glass in 1994 available which dubs all the dialogue with a more ear-soothing tenor.
referential films: Bill Condon’s BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (2017, 7.1/10),Jean-Pierre Melville’s LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES (1950, 6.6/10); René Clément’s FORBIDDEN GAMES (1952, 8.7/10).
达利“荒野”一样的画面、大胆的弗洛伊德主义象征符号、诗意般的超现实主义童话。当面对内心最强烈的渴望与恐惧时,野兽是那么有魅力,王子却肤浅、愚蠢——即不幸可以将任何一个人变成野兽,善恶却与之无关。
美人初入城堡的那段慢动作飘逸唯美,对壁炉边的头颅和墙壁里桌子下伸出来的胳膊印象很深。歌剧音轨虽口型和表情对不上,但也别有一番风味。比原版故事多了一个穷帅求婚者,结尾野兽重生变成死去求婚者的样子(富帅合一才嫁)略讽刺。又一只野兽尸体难道要下一位美女来拯救?自私贪财不守信=禽兽不如?
感觉偏笨重,舞台感也很强。中间一段其实应该双线的,单线就枯燥了,以及野兽的造型其实真的好挫啊,就算是四十年代也应该可以好很多的。
华丽丽巴洛克式穿越绮罗堆,壁炉头,掌灯手,蕾丝围脖猫,远瀛观疠气,石兽谐奇趣
2023-7-8重看;诗意现实+暗黑童话,终成眷属背后的细思极恐,各种技术手段今日看来依旧不过时,尤其是墙壁里伸出的手很有前瞻意义(模仿者甚多吧);大量夜戏考量打光技术,城堡暗夜中飘起的窗帘和拖曳的裙边,像一首超现实诗歌,是默片时代的遗产。
诗意表象下延展出深层恐惧,内在与外在、美丽与丑陋的界线十分模糊,看似美好的结局其实有多重位面可供解读。
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaG3zns3fqA
《美女与野兽》诸作,惟此作满含寓意,颇能解惑,化尽丛林城市中人人的贪嗔痴毒。人为自己的贪婪所卖,野兽,其实就是欲望之化身。记得野兽在临死时对善良的小女儿说道:“如果我是一个人,或许我能振作起来。但可怜的野兽虽然渴望证明自己的爱,却只能趴在地上,然后死去。”后来野兽变成了王子,小女儿用怀疑的眼神看着王子,他们似乎幸福地生活在一起。扮演小女儿的马琳·奥黛丽说,首映时当她看到野兽死后变成的王子,忍不住对着银幕喊道:“我那美丽的野兽哪儿去了?”
一直认为「美女与野兽」的气质跟童话并不符,其实有更多现实黑暗的元素在里面,而J·Cocteau的版本则完美地将原著的成人元素释放出来;光与影的交织以及各种拍摄技法很好地传递了城堡及野兽的阴森孤独,不间断的音乐也一定程度地象征着角色的内心活动。一次极佳的感官盛宴,四星。
大概只有这样的全才才能拍成这部平衡了爱情与想象力的电影。又或者爱情是必须依赖与想象而生。而本片在爱情关系里,对强弱双方转换的探讨,几乎是基于精准的台词的构造,只是后来几部翻拍都无法抓到这个童话故事的精髓的根本所在。当然,这也是关于一部一见钟情与苦恋的电影。
纯粹诗化的梦境,带着对童话世界的赞美与讽刺。贝尔是美丽、善良也是残忍的。她拒绝一切,只想永远做一个女孩。对着满身是血的野兽,她只厌恶的说,去,把它擦干净。但她又忍不住偷看野兽,被它的痛苦吸引。她厌恶人性,又不自觉的爱上讨厌的人。这里有过度放大的美丑和品德,还有奇怪的孤独
@2023法国电影大师展。原来迪士尼是翻拍自这部。极具想象力和神秘感,阴森城堡中的人手和肢体,死亡气息中的一点生命力。昔日的魔幻智能已经通过今日的科技实现了。结尾的happy ending透露着诡异的气息,如果动物的形象来自欲望的本来面目,野兽在结尾换上的是另一层伪装,正如美女的恐惧和欲望傻傻分不清楚。片头说让我们一起念四字咒语以为要说让科克托哈哈
直到现在这么多改编的版本,无论怎么变化,都没有去掉野兽变成帅气有钱王子的结局。而这一切都始于Jean Cocteau和René Clément执导的这一部影片。这个基调没有变,都还是童话故事。只是本片做的比后来的影像更先锋一些,后来的愈加保守主义。
野兽真真俊美!露脸时间太短了!
请听歌剧的音轨...
没下到传说中的Philip Glass歌剧版有点可惜,不过片子还不错。鬼魅梦幻的布景设计和视觉效果还是非常经典的让·谷克多,走廊上“诗人之血”式的滑行颇为诗意,后半段的情感表达倒意外的没那么突兀,结尾的翻转设计颇为邪典有意思,总的来说经典故事又一次变成拖后腿的一项了。
是否童话里所有善良口耐的小美眉,都有一双貌若土鳖心若蛇蝎的解捷~美女步入城堡一幕,光影确实很曼妙~但谁能告诉我,为什么美女就那么冷不丁地爱上禽兽,为什么~
用印象派的电影语言诠释格林童话。。。尽管艺术指导走了华丽丽的洛可可风格但仍然感觉这电影很木讷一点不生动。。。PS影片开头还希望观众是一个天真烂漫的单纯的小孩而这部电影最缺的似乎就是童真。。。
⒈看个开头破有种「灰姑娘」误入《美女与野兽》的感觉;⒉还以为会是黑白默片,结果全程带有歌剧台词音轨(看人物嘴型,角色原本应该是讲台词的),如此看来,从头唱到尾的形式比《瑟堡的雨伞》还早(只是这版的《美女与野兽》没能同期录音);⒊所以2017年版父亲摘玫瑰而被野兽囚禁应该是遵循原著了?
之前真不知道是歌舞片,不然就不会看了,这把人唱的要昏过去。制作上走在时代的前列了,父亲第一次到城堡的氛围营造和布景的去童话感挺喜欢的,墙壁里伸出来的手、可以转动时刻盯着人看的人脸雕像、自动点燃的蜡烛,视觉上还算能让人满足。还有那个野兽长得好可爱啊,想养一只。