Jeanne-Marie LePrince de Beaumont’s “Beauty and the Beast”
Jeanne-Marie LePrince de Beaumont’s “Beauty and the Beast” is focused on the love of a daughter for her father however that eventually ends with a reward of getting married to a beautiful prince. While Jean Cocteau’s 1946 film version focuses more on the romantic attitude and relations between the Beauty and the Beast. Jean Cocteau’s film Beauty and the Beast is based on the text version of Jeanne-Marie LePrince de Beaumont’s “Beauty and the Beast”. Though Cocteau’s film version give somewhat touching view. The film version of Cocteau mirrors the 17th century settings and the themes of a typical fairy tale.
On one side there are evil sisters of the beauty (good hearted youngest daughter) and on the other side a wicked man wanting to marry the beauty. In the film he created a fantastical frame of mind. The castle of the Beast is not on the earth hence, Belle is shown floating in the air while reaching the castle. Cocteau’s movie creates an imaginary and dream-world by making the progress of the movie in slow motion. Different scenes especially when Belle moves to castle are in slow-motion gives view of a majestic world. The acting and characters in the film are remarkable.
With terrific dialogues it gives the magical perfection to the film with lost love, admiration, sense of duty, sacrifice and romantic feelings. Of course, as written text we can only read the story and imagine what is being said but with film version it is quite different to view. The film version shows all the scenes and dialogues in real environment. The camera settings are such that can add to the fantasy. The shots and scenes at the castle are made very graceful. As compared to the written text version we cannot get the exact view of the settings.
What we get from reading the literature of Jeanne-Marie’s story our focus in on the themes and endings. However, Cocteau’s film version gives details of each and every scene; in addition, actor’s acting and background settings, and dialogues diverges the thoughts of the viewers from the real focus of the story. The audience of the movie may get involved with the imaginary scenes and dialogues. The film version by Cocteau shows the interaction of the Belle and the Beast more precisely. The literature of Jeanne-Marie was interpreted as the love of the daughter for her father.
She went to Beast castle not with the hope of falling in love but only to save her father’s life. She was ready to give away her life in place of her father. However, she got a beautiful prince in return while her father is also saved. The film of Cocteau is more focused on the romantic relations between the beauty and the beast. She’s being unaware that the Beast is the prince, falls in love with him because his kind attitude and gentleness. Soon discovers him to be the prince both got married and lives a happy life while the evil sisters get their punishment for being too mean and wickedness.
Conclusion The Beast is actually a very beautiful prince who showed up to the Belle at the very last moment. Though the film version was superficially a different one, it easily discriminates the reality from fantasy. Both the fairy tale and film version are similar in many cases but different at many contexts. However, the film version is based on the text of Jeanne-Marrie has some remarkable scenes and cinematography not present in written text. References Jeanne-Marrie. Beauty and the Beast. Retrieved form http://www. pitt. edu/~dash/beauty. html
