{"id":6687,"date":"2017-03-20T08:30:01","date_gmt":"2017-03-20T12:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/?p=6687"},"modified":"2018-06-28T13:38:20","modified_gmt":"2018-06-28T17:38:20","slug":"the-cinema-behind-beauty-and-the-beast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/the-cinema-behind-beauty-and-the-beast\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cinema Behind ‘Beauty and the Beast’"},"content":{"rendered":"

One might look at 2017\u2019s Beauty and the Beast<\/i> and wonder what film history is in its DNA besides the obvious. On the surface, it\u2019s merely a remake of Disney\u2019s 1991 animated musical adaptation of the fairy tale, but the new Beauty and the Beast <\/i>finds itself inspired by many films \u2014 including other versions of the same story. <\/span><\/p>\n

The 1946 French version of Beauty and the Beast <\/i>by Jean Cocteau lends the conceit of a magical object that can transport Belle anywhere. In the 1946 telling of the tale, it was a glove, but this latest version is a book with a map that whisks Belle to the place of her heart\u2019s desire.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>As a musical, it takes more than a few cues from the work of Busby Berkeley. Berkeley was a renowned film director and choreographer who was responsible for the most striking aspects of films like Footlight Parade <\/i>(1933) <\/i>and The Gold Diggers of 1933<\/i>. He was known for the kaleidoscopic patterns and fantastical elements in dance numbers that are referenced heavily in the \u201cBe Our Guest\u201d sequence of Beauty and the Beast. <\/i>The living dishes of the castle couldn\u2019t get more fantastical as they sing and dance their way through Belle\u2019s first dinner. <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Busby Berkeley wasn\u2019t the only famous choreographer whose work in referenced in that \u201cBe Our Guest\u201d sequence. Lumiere has a moment that\u2019s pure Gene Kelly in Singin\u2019 in the Rain, <\/i>kicking through a puddle of water with the same irresistible glee that Kelly brought to that film\u2019s title number.<\/span><\/p>\n

Beauty and the Beast\u2019s <\/i>director, Bill Condon, is no stranger to crafting musicals himself, nor to adapting them from previously existing material. He wrote the screenplay adaptation of 2002\u2019s Chicago <\/i>and he wrote and directed 2006\u2019s Dreamgirls. <\/i>Both films feature characters yearning and reaching (sometimes killing) for something different from their lives, and that can be seen in Belle\u2019s first musical number. <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The most interesting tie to this version of Beauty and the Beast<\/i> threads deeply into 1931\u2019s Frankenstein<\/i>. It was this adaptation of Mary Shelley\u2019s novel that created nearly every stereotypical image we have of Frankenstein, including the motif of the mob approaching the monster with torches and pitchforks. Beauty and the Beast<\/i> relies heavily on that imagery, most strikingly in the musical number that hinges on Gaston rallying townspeople to \u201cKill the Beast.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But the connections don\u2019t end there. Frankenstein was directed by James Whale, who was openly gay. Whale\u2019s story caught the attention of Condon (also gay), who in 1998 wrote and directed a biopic called Gods and Monsters<\/i>, starring Ian McKellen \u2014 Beauty and the Beast<\/i>\u2019s Cogsworth \u2014 as Whale. In the film, set in the early days of his retirement, Whale is recovering from a series of strokes and strikes up a friendship with his handsome young gardener, played by Brendan Fraser. Gods and Monsters<\/i>\u2019 theme of unrequited love is a subtext in Beauty and the Beast<\/i>, too, not just between the Beast and Belle but also, in Condon\u2019s version, between LeFou and Gaston.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ultimately, this film is a culmination of everything Bill Condon has made use of in his long career. Even his handling of love stories with wolves from Twilight <\/i>come into play to make him the ideal, if unconventional, choice to direct something like Disney\u2019s live-action Beauty and the Beast.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Bryan Young<\/a> lives in an enchanted castle in Salt Lake City.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One might look at 2017\u2019s Beauty and the Beast and wonder what film history is in its DNA besides the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":476,"featured_media":6688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1381,1400],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies","category-on-the-marquee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/476"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}