BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1991 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: Disney's animated feature films are, in my opinion, over-rated. They lack plot and complexity. Their emotional impact is limited. The usual excuse is that they are only supposed to be simple children's films. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST demonstrates that a lot more can be done in this medium. It beats BAMBI, CINDERELLA, SNOW WHITE, SLEEPING BEAUTY, and all of the other classics, including FANTASIA. Parents should go with their kids. If you don't have kids, go anyway. This one may not be on cassette this century. Rating: +2 (-4 to +4).
I rather surprised myself with BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. When I was young, I liked the Disney feature cartoons as little entertainments, but after age ten or so I found the stories a little uninteresting. Eventually I could respect the detail in the technique, but even then I was rarely impressed with their imagination. Yes, they had attention to detail and if I knew what to look for, I liked that. But, with the exception of the dragon sequence from SLEEPING BEAUTY and the "Night on Bald Mountain" sequence from FANTASIA, there was not much beyond lukewarm imagination. And the stories were really uninteresting. And being a realist about my own looks, I have long been a little irritated at the subtext that equates physical beauty and ugliness to evil. With all that to set up my attitude, it is hardly surprising that I would come away from BEAUTY AND THE BEAST genuinely believing it is the best animated feature film ever to come from Disney Studios. And that includes that beloved intellectual fraud FANTASIA.
The plot of the film maintains Disney's usual standard for fidelity to the original story. This means, of course, that if you read Madame de Villeneuve's story and then saw the film, you would be likely to see similarities and probably would believe that the story did somehow inspire the film. (Those anxious to read the story faithfully told can find it in Andrew Lang's BLUE FAIRY BOOK.) Some bits were more likely inspired by Jean Cocteau's film LA BELLE ET LA BETE. Belle, if not a real intellectual, is at least a reader. In fact, she seems to love books more than boys, so is thought to be weird. (Bravo for her!) But Belle has a semi-secret admirer. Gaston is handsome, big, and strong. He is also obnoxious, insufferably conceited, sexist, and selfish. Gaston is supremely macho and the film subtly makes the statement that to be macho is to be beastlike. All of Gaston's virtues that he tells us about are really just descriptions of a beast. He is big, he kills animals, he is covered with hair. There are a bevy of young women from the town who swoon over the beastly qualities of Gaston. Belle, however, is unimpressed and wants nothing to do with Gaston. Then events conspire (or contrive) to make her the prisoner in an enchanted castle ruled over by a real beast--or at least an apparently real beast. He has all of Gaston's qualities in a more extreme form. The Beast is super- macho, but knows that it is a curse both literally and figuratively. Belle wants no part of the Beast until he starts to win her over. How does he start to win her over? In a manner--time-honored in Disney films--for beasts to win over people. I won't say how, but anyone who has seen OLD YELLER will find the situation familiar. The story is well-told, though almost entirely revisionist.
Some mention should be made of the castle's enchantment, since many of the film characters exist as a direct result of that enchantment. Once touch that Cocteau put in his film version that was not in the original story was that the walls of the castle had ornamental torch-holders that looked like human arms holding the torches. These ornamental holders have a life of their own. The Disney film extends this to most of the furnishings of the castle, giving them also voices and personalities. At moments this almost has a Philip K. Dick sort of horror, when someone drinking from a tea cup finds the cup is talking to him. The personalities are genial, however, and the potential horror is quickly muted.
Visually this film is at least up to and probably better than what we think of as the classic Disney feature cartoons. Snow White and Sleeping Beauty were drawn as sweet and cheerful as a bluebird but perhaps not quite as smart. They were characters for years when innocence was prized over intelligence. Belle has apricot-sized eyes and high cheekbones, but also a range of facial expression far greater than the classic animation heroines. There is clearly more going on in her head than in those of her previous counterparts. Whether it was done before without acknowledgement, or is a new approach, a different team animates each of the major characters. James Baxter headed the team which animated Belle and Paige O'Hara voiced the characters.
The Beast is a strange concoction combining elements of a mandrill, a bison, a lion, and the American werewolf in London. Glen Kean was is chief animator for the Beast. The voice casting director (I am sorry I do not have his name) listened on tape to several dozen voices for special characteristics. He said in an interview that he himself was surprised to hear the qualities he wanted in the voice of Robbie Benson. I share his surprise and his conviction that Benson's voice does work for the Beast.
In general, the art and animation are impressively done. These days effort goes into every background painting. One place I noted poor technique and it took me some time to get the joke. While Disney artists usually take pains to make each character different, the three village maids who fawn on Gaston are really one character drawn three times. They were then animated in a perfunctory two-dimensional style. Perhaps the filmmakers were subtly saying that women impressed by macho are just not worth much effort.
The songs are by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, who also wrote the songs for THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (one piece is reminiscent of a piece from LITTLE SHOP) and THE LITTLE MERMAID. Overall, the music is better than that of THE LITTLE MERMAID. The remainder of the film's music was by Menken. Ashman served as executive producer. A note at the end dedicates the film to Howard Ashman, who died of AIDS eight months before the release of the film.
There is some irony in the fact that Don Bluth left Disney animation studios because they were not doing animation films in their own grand tradition and now they may be doing them better. In BEAUTY AND THE BEAST Disney Studios has given me something it has not given me in a long time: an animated feature film I want to see again. I rate it a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale. Amazing.
Mark R. Leeper
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