My Favorite Films: Beauty and the Beast (1991) (Musical Mondays)

     When I was a very young boy I, like most American kids, watched many Disney animated films. When I was about three, however, my father decided that many of them were too intense for me and my siblings, and cut us off from watching them. I have very few memories of that time but I do faintly remember watching Beauty and the Beast, specifically the climatic scene where Gaston tries to kill the Beast. Rediscovering the film in my later teenage years, a time when I was becoming interested in film, I found that it held up incredibly well. It's a film that succeeds brilliantly both as a musical and as a surprisingly mature animated fairy-tale.

     In some musical films the songs are just there for show, seemingly interrupting the story between important scenes. Beauty and the Beast's musical score, by musical theater veterans Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, uses the musical numbers to tell the story. It does this both through Ashman's nuanced, evocative lyrics and Menken's beautiful score, which makes great, subtle use of leitmotif. Right from the start. the opening number sets up the story really well. It establishes Belle's intelligence, her independence and her thirst for adventure, Gaston's arrogance and his desire to have Belle as his bride, and the suspicious and noisy nature of the townsfolk, who see Gaston as the town hero and Belle as a misfit. This song also sets up the tone of the film, balancing comedy with heavier dramatic moments. Accompanying, perhaps, my favorite scene in the film, Something there that Wasn't There Before shows Belle and Beast slowly grow in their mutual attraction toward each other. In it they begin to see beyond their outward appearances and appreciate each others inner qualities. It perfectly encapsulates their relationship and serves as the dramatic crux of the film. Ashman, in particular, left an inedible mark on this film but he sadly passed away (from AIDS) before it was released. The film is dedicated to his memory. "To our friend Howard, who gave a mermaid her voice and a beast his soul, we will be forever grateful."

     The animation in Beauty and the Beast is some of the best the studio has ever done. The character's facial expressions are incredibly flexible and varied and the backgrounds intricate, detailed and atmospheric. Every major character was assigned their own chief animator, giving them a chance to really breath life and individuality into the characters. The Beast's servants are all inanimate objects, one's which reflect their unique personalities, hence Cogsworth is stiff and wound up like a clock, Lumiere is passionate and fiery, liking a burning candle, and so on. Of course, good voice actors are essential, both to help imbue the characters with personality and to effectively sing the songs. The cast of Beauty and the Beast, many of them experienced Broadway players, are more than up to the task, with Paige O'Hara (Belle), Angela Lansberry (Mrs. Potts), and Richard White (Gaston) giving particularly stand out performances. The background artists drew inspiration from Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast (1946) and from the French countryside where the crew went on a tour, to create the films beautiful, painterly backgrounds.

     Of all Disney's animated fairy-tales, Beauty and the Beast feels the most mature and complex. It's essentially a study of three principle characters, Belle, the Beast, and Gaston. The latter two are mirrors for each other and are defined, mainly, by their relationship with and attitude toward Belle, who refuses to be defined by either of them. She is strong and independent while also being modest and unassuming, she realizes that she doesn't fit in with the townsfolk and she accepts this. Like most Disney heroines she longs for something she doesn't have, but rather than simply desiring romance Belle's looking for something more, something beyond herself. Of course she also wants someone who can relate to her.

     Early in the story Belle gives up her freedom for her father, proving her love for him and also her heroic nature. She is at first completely repulsed by the Beast, and rightly so. He's taken away her freedom and only treated her with anger and impatience. It's only after she tries to escape, and he risks his life to save her from the wolves, that she slowly begins to see beyond his exterior to the good person he is inside, the person that she is helping him to become. Even then she is not really prepared to give her love to him. It takes his letting her go, and her inadvertently endangering his life, for her to truly fall in love.

     As we discover through the films rather brilliant prologue, told through a series of stained glass windows in the Beast's castle, he was once a young prince who turned away a beggar woman who was looking for shelter. But it turned out that the beggar was actually an enchantress, who cursed the prince by turning him into a hideous beast. He learns that he must fall in love, and and earn the love of another, before his 21st birthday, or else he'll remain a beast forever. The Beast has to find someone who, unlike him, can see past his ugliness, and then prove himself worthy of her love.

     At first, the Beast only sees Belle as a way out of his curse. He has to learn to love her as a person despite the fact that he has selfish reasons for doing so. He also sees her as someone beyond his reach which fuels his frustration and rage. His failure to treat her with patience, or even common dignity, initially drives her away. Meanwhile, Gaston only sees Belle as an trophy to be won. He increasingly shows less concern for her feelings culminating in his attempt to blackmail her into marrying him. Both Gaston and the Beast are given a chance to be better people at different points in the story. The Beast must show that he's not a monster. To start, by risking his own life to save Belle from the wolves he wins her trust to some extent. Then, by letting her leave to save her father, essentially surrendering his own hope of breaking the curse, he allows her the freedom and dignity to make her own choices. Finally, by sparing Gaston's life he completely rejects his Beastly urges, proving that he's a good man inside. This is something Gaston subsequently refuses to do for the Beast. He starts out merely as a chauvinistic product of his environment but in the end his actions make him the real monster.

     Beauty and the Beast is a movie that's seems to get better every time I watch it. There always seems to be a bit of word play that I didn't appreciate before or some detail in the animation that I never noticed. It's a perfect blend of comedy and drama, of animation and musical theater, of enchanting fairy-tale and nuanced romance. It's my favorite Disney animated film.