MovieChat Forums > La Belle et la Bête (1947) Discussion > Strange, haunting, mystical, amazing, lo...

Strange, haunting, mystical, amazing, lovely movie


Just watching the Beast brooding all depressed was affecting

Great movie

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Beautiful, hauntingly beautiful . My 5 year old is able to follow along and appreciate its fantastic. i dont know if anyone here plays final fantasy games. But you can see some influence this movie may have had on some of those older games

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I remember when I first saw this film, I fell in love with the beast. And I guess it was the same for Greta Garbo who reportedly called out, “Give Me Back My Beast!” at the ending of Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast (1946), when she first saw the film.

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For sure . To be the beast is to be human.
I dont see how any man could not
Empathize and relate to the beast
Lovely anecdote about Greta.

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But I actually liked the beast better than the prince. I am empathetic but in this case empathy had nothing to do with it. The beast was more appealing to me. And I guess for Garbo too.

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Apparently that’s the exact effect Jean Cocteau had intended. While remaining true to the plot of the original fairytale (‘ugly’ beast gets transformed into ‘handsome’ prince), Cocteau wanted it to leave us feeling unsatisfied, thus turning the whole ugly/handsome stereotype upside down. So you (and Garbo) got the point!

Cocteau’s words:
“ My story would concern itself mainly with the unconscious obstinacy with which women pursue the same type of man, and expose the naïveté of the old fairytales that would have us believe that this type reaches its ideal in conventional good looks.”

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One of my favorites when I was first getting into Fellini and Kurosawa and all kinds of foreign films.
Still a favorite but it reminds me of that wonderful time of discovery.

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