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OT: A little on the new "Beauty and the Beast"(with a Psycho connection)

posted 7 years ago by ecarle (14979)
9 replies | jump to latest

This is the kind of OT post I don't like to put on the actual board of the movie, because it might get torn to pieces over there. But here at the Psycho board, I can hide it. And it IS relevant to Psycho.

I had reason to watch as a "captive audience," the recent live action version of Disney's Beauty and the Beast, as re-made in 2017 with "real actors"(and some very good ones indeed) from the animated film of 1991 that received a nomination for Best Picture that year.

Its a long time since I saw the 1991 version(and I did, I saw LOTS of movies for kids in those days, knowing lots of family kids), but I recall liking it, and liking the songs. I bought the 1991 DVD and played it in my car. The title tune was lilting and emotional -- when it reaches the phrase "ever a surprise, ever just the same..." well, just lovely and moving. There was the version sung by Angela Lansbury in the film itself, and a "pop hit duet" as a single.

There was also the showstopping Broadway style big number "Be Our Guest," in which a singing/talking Candleabra (complete with flaming hands) leads all his fellow "bewitched objects" in a big ol' number welcoming Belle the Beauty into the cursed castle of the beast.

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The new 2017 Beauty and the Beast turns "Be Our Guest" into an even BIGGER showstopper, with CGI multiplicities of image and a huge bow to both Busby Berkeley(in the overhead dance shots) and Esther Williams(in pool-based swimming dances). Its CGI overkill, to be sure, but it sure bespeaks of a knowledge of musical film history.

"Be Our Guest" raises the funny question, though: if the 1991 original was a "cartoon," exactly how is a new movie filled with CGI characters considered "live action"? Oh...there are some live actors in it, I guess. Emma Watson, all grown up from Harry Potter, as Belle. Kevin Kline -- a marvelous, underused actor -- as her father. Josh Gad -- a young, plump Jack Black clone who will have Tony Perkins' role in the new "Orient Express" as the evil Gaston's comic-not-that-evil sidekick. And others.

But still. Its a CGI cartoon this time, just with some people in it.

Which raises my next point....

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

...the "live people" I Beauty and the Beast 2017 count many fine actors voicing the animated inanimate objects in the haunted castle -- a candelabra, a clock, a teapot -- and at the climax of this film, the objects revert back to the people they were and -- VOILA -- what a bunch of great actors:

The candelabra: Ewan MacGregor(doing a French accent with a twirly little stache.)
The clock: Sir Ian MacKellan(with a big crooked moustache)
The teapot: Emma Thompson (all "Love Actually" with her sad smile)
The piano: The great Stanley Tucci, grinning with missing teeth as he is missing his piano keys
The clothes dreser: Audra MacDonald (she of the operatic singing voice.)
The swan duster: Some really gorgeous actress(who is MacGregor's love interest)

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The conceit of Beauty and the Beast 2017 is that it can reveal -- if ever so briefly at the finale -- its "voice cast of stars" AS stars...even as Emma Watson and Kevin Kline and Josh Gad(most famous as the voice of the snowman in "Frozen") take the screen with them.

That's some all-star ending.

Which brings me to two more things...

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

ONE: ...when the big dance finale of "Beauty and the Beast concludes(with Audra MacDonald singing the title song with full choir)...an "end credits run-through" OF the cast proceeds, accompanied by a new, lilting song written directly for the 2017 version, sung by -- who else? -- Celine Dion.

I just love this "curtain call" movie cast conclusions, as each actor gets to act little and look out at us to say goodbye. Ewan MacGregor, Ian MacKellen, Emma Thompson, and Josh Gad do so with great flourish but...

...its Kevin Kline who moved me. He gets maybe 5 seconds to bow and say goodbye, but the things he does with his face are ACTING. For his character has lost his wife(Belle's mother) and here, even at the curtain call, Kline manages to project the man's sadness. Its as if, in the middle of trying to offer a smile for his final bow, Kline remembers that his character is a sad man. And he becomes one. Weirdly, I was -- in those mere 5 seconds -- reminded of Kline's wonderfully warm and humanistic performance in the movie "Dave" (1993) where he played a US President's double and did good things while the real President was in a coma.

TWO: There is a handsome hero and a handsome villain in Beauty and the Beast. They get curtain calls, too. I have no idea who they are. (The handsome hero, of course, does much of the movie as the ugly beast.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Finally...the Psycho connection.

My memories of the 1991 Disney "Beauty and the Beast" were weak, but they came back -- scene by scene, shot by shot, line by line -- as the 2017 version unfurled.

Yes, this is "Van Sant's Beauty and the Beast."

But that's what Disney is DOING now, yes? They did it with "The Jungle Book" last year, and they'll be going after their other cartoon classics soon: Aladdin and The Liion King. Shot for shot, line for line...just with "real people" (and heavy CGI) instead of cartoon animation.

I thought of Van Sant's Psycho while watching this new Beauty and the Beast, and it hit me: he may have been on to something, after all.

PS. I"ve seen a clip of the new version of "The Bare Necessities" from the new Jungle Book, and even with the estimable Bill Murray valiantly trying to amiably sing what Phil Harris gave us with dat ole' New Orleans drawl...its terrible. The "live action bear" floating downriver with the live action boy atop him ...seems to be very wet and in state of risking both of them to drowning. Memories of the 1967 dancin' bear win easily.

[–] swanstep (2616) 7 years ago

My memories of the 1991 Disney "Beauty and the Beast" were weak, but they came back -- scene by scene, shot by shot, line by line -- as the 2017 version unfurled.
Yes, this is "Van Sant's Beauty and the Beast."

I do think that the comparison is apt. B&tB (1991) is probably second only to Mary Poppins (1964) in terms of Disney pride and prestige. B&tB (1991) got a Best Picture nom - the only animation to ever get such a nom I believe (and of course this was back when there were only 5 nominees and so were very hard to get indeed). And B&tB (1991) cemented (after Little Mermaid's prior success) that the Disney animated musical was *back* big time after a lean couple of decades. So, remaking B&tB (1991) *is* in animation terms remaking a Psycho-level all-time-great.

I believe that B&tB (2017) has been an ultra-smash box-office-wise, so Disney's faith in its property has been amply rewarded... not quite Psycho (1998)'s fate.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I do think that the comparison is apt.

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Hello, swanstep! Summer's taking me in and out of this board, but a pleasure to hear from you...

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B&tB (1991) is probably second only to Mary Poppins (1964) in terms of Disney pride and prestige.

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An interesting point...and "seconded" by the fact that B and B is from the "later period" long after Uncle Walt's death and after the 1980's re-birth of the studio(under entirely new management and creators) was well under way.

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B&tB (1991) got a Best Picture nom - the only animation to ever get such a nom I believe (and of course this was back when there were only 5 nominees and so were very hard to get indeed).

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Indeed. Having lived through that release -- and having bought the CD of music from the film -- I expect this was because the film truly felt like a "new kind of Broadway musical, on film, in cartoon" -- the storyline and the score had the heft of My Fair Lady or South Pacific. And the title tune did "double duty" -- a beautiful emotional rendition by Angela Lansbury in the film, and a top ten pop single duet(for whom, I can't remember -- its Arianna Grande and John Legend doing the new one.)

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And B&tB (1991) cemented (after Little Mermaid's prior success) that the Disney animated musical was *back* big time after a lean couple of decades.

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Yes. The "detail" is that, once Walt died in 1966, the studio struggled under his family's ownership with all sorts of misfires in the 70s (Robin Hood, The Black Hole) until new folks bought the studio and reconfigured it for the go-go eighties.

But I don't think anyone saw the coming of the "cartoon Broadway musicals" that would underpin the studio's new success: The Little Mermaid, B and B, Aladdin. And then came The Lion King, which became some sort of megla-success. Needless to say, some of these productions are ON Broadway now. Or touring the world endlessly on stage.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

So, remaking B&tB (1991) *is* in animation terms remaking a Psycho-level all-time-great.

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Pretty close. Of course, Psycho had nowhere near the Oscar respect of B and the B. Psycho is more historic as a movie event...but no more meaningful as a box office/Oscar event.

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I believe that B&tB (2017) has been an ultra-smash box-office-wise, so Disney's faith in its property has been amply rewarded... not quite Psycho (1998)'s fate

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No. Agreed. But Van Sant's Psycho proved that Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho was a "once in a lifetime payoff" of a classic. Its shocks were no longer so shocking in 1998.

But the songs of Beauty and the Beast are still vibrant, beautiful, witty.

Still, from what I could see, the new B and B was practically "shot for shot, line for line" from the 1991 original. Its as if the cartoon version provides storyboards for the new version.

I did a little research. Disney is doing this to "Aladdin" next. Will Smith -- rather wobbly as a superstar nowadays -- will play the Genie, thus taking on Robin Williams' inestimable improvisational talent. (But then, I was never a big fan of Williams' schtick -- I thought Jonathan Winters was much better at it, and less "mime-ish.")

I can only assume that a live action Little Mermaid and Lion King are on the drawing board..yet another "universe" in Hollywood.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

While I'm on the subject:

I found the "character curtain call end credits" for the new Beauty and the Beast on YouTube. I think they get to stay there; Disney is allowing it. The end credits got a lot of fan praise in the comments...some folks feel the end credits are the only good thing in the reboot.

I get too emotional about these things -- they hit me in a certain nostaligic way ("My curtain call end credits aren't your curtain call end credits") -- but it is still fun to watch all these actors "show off their actorly traits" for a mere five seconds apiece. The Celine Dion song is touching, and amplified in emotion as each actor takes their figurative bow.

Especially Kevin Kline.

Its there for the watching on YouTube. For awhile...

[–] swanstep (2616) 7 years ago

"Still, from what I could see, the new B and B was practically "shot for shot, line for line" from the 1991 original. Its as if the cartoon version provides storyboards for the new version."

There was another example of that this year when Hollywood remade a beloved Japanese anime Ghost In The Shell (1995) (which had formerly been stripmined by The Matrix) as a live+CGI film with ScarJo.

Whole sequences were reproduced shot-by-shot, but, as with van Sant's Psycho, the reproductions are very imperfect (e.g. colors and lighting are changed at least as much as going from B&W - often things are just way too dark to have any impact) and it's enough to completely change the meanings of some shots. And where the remake's *not* involved in this kind of futile reproduction and is actually doing its own thing, it makes a series of increasingly boring choices... The excellent youtube essayist Nerdwriter exasperatedly reviews the damage here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2soHxEN79c
And see his earlier piece on GitS (1995) here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXTnl1FVFBw

Ultimately GitS (1995) is as much of its time as Psycho (1960) was of its. Techno-cool-ness dates (and gets quickly imitated and built upon) very like shocking-ness so any mechanical remake after 20+ years *will* fail. You'll need a whole new set of ideas and craft as good as the original to be a new triumph and that's going to be hard to do. GitS (2017) has a few nice robots but that's about it!

[–] swanstep (2616) 7 years ago

But that's what Disney is DOING now, yes? They did it with "The Jungle Book" last year, and they'll be going after their other cartoon classics soon: Aladdin and The Liion King. Shot for shot, line for line...just with "real people" (and heavy CGI) instead of cartoon animation.

Apparently Tim Burton's next movie is a (Disney) live action remake of Dumbo (1941). Casting decisions and pre-prod. details are have been in the Trades the last few weeks.

Anyhow, I think that Dumbo (1941) is a fair remake target. The original doesn't work any more: it's drenched in a lot of mid-20C ethnic and class stereotyping that's embarrassing now, military/WW2 stuff that's simply incomprensible to current young kids, not to mention anti-biological babies-and-storks nonsense that I nobody should stand for these days (but then again The Boss Baby (2017) used it, so what do I know?).