Beauty and the Beast
1946, NR, 95 min. Directed by Jean Cocteau. Starring Jean Marais, Josette Day.
REVIEWED By Marjorie Baumgarten, Thu., Oct. 4, 2001
Cocteau works his visual magic on the age-old story of a girl and her beast. La Belle et la Bête is the French artistic master's first full-length feature, and he brings his fluency in fine art and theatre to this sumptuous fairy tale. Walls and statuary move unbidden and the otherworldly look of the film, costumes, and make-up are magnificent. Cocteau also understands and imbues his movie with a modern, post-Freudian take on fairy tales as childhood's forum for working through subconscious maturation processes – i.e., the young woman reluctant to leave her father's home and go live with a wild, hairy beast.
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Beauty and the Beast, Jean Cocteau, Jean Marais, Josette Day
