film begins with a shot of "Beauty and the Beast Scene One", which is blocked by an outstretched hand. A text description is inserted immediately, and the TLF subtitles are slightly adjusted and recorded as follows:
"Children always Believe what we say, they always trust us completely. They believe that the roses collected from the garden will drag a family into conflict. They believe that when a beast kills a person, its hands will smoke. This It will make the beast feel very ashamed. When a young girl lives in his house, they believe that many other simple things will happen. I hope you have a little childlike innocence and bring us luck. Let me say four have The word of magic, the opening of sesame seeds in childhood: a long time ago...-
Jean Cocteau "
However, this film is not a simple fairy tale, it is full of mystery, with unusual elegance and mystery. In the house of his father who was facing bankruptcy, it was like a humorous comedy that pointed to current malpractices, with a touch of the near-nothing tragedy of "Cherry Orchard" and the conspiracy struggle of "King Lear". In the castle of the beasts, everything has the mystery of symbolism and expressionism, and the characters reveal the noble elegance of classical drama with just the right exaggeration.
The whole film is extremely stylized, those with arms holding candlesticks, statues with their heads turning to close their eyes in front of the fireplace, monsters on the armrests of the roaring chairs, doors and curtains that open and close by themselves, white curtains blowing in the wind, flashing The costumes and crowns with the light of gems show endless levels of black and white light and shadow with low contrast.
Classic films in film history often have such advantages. They broaden your horizons and let you know that there is always another way to make the film look good. It is not the same as Hollywood "Noir" and "Ivan the Terrible." "Beauty and the Beast" has another flavor.
What puzzles me in this film is the ending. The person Belle originally liked was shot to death by the arrow in the hut, and the corpse was turned into the image of a beast. The beast became the original lover, although Belle has fallen in love at this time. The soul of the beast.
This exchange may have a profound philosophical meaning. Those who adore wealth turn into beasts and die, and those who yearn for love turn into handsome men. But there is inevitably a tendency to satisfy human aesthetics. If the hard work of the beasts is not as important as the exchange of a human skin, then the happy flight of the last two is just an illusion.
However, the setting of "Beauty and the Beast" itself contains irreconcilable contradictions, and the successful ending can only be based on a certain kind of compromise.
Wikipedia "Beauty and the Beast" entry refers to the following: Stockholm syndrome, King Kong (monster), "Dracula", "Macbeth", "Notre Dame". Except for the first one is a psychological phenomenon, the rest are tragedies.
Perhaps, in Jean Cocteau’s "Beauty and the Beast", we should not pay too much attention to the story, but give him complete trust like a child, focusing on the anxious beast, the kind Belle and what she wears. The graceful figure passing by the castle. Focus on those mysterious, unknown, childhood nightmares and fantasies.
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