Film Comment: Beauty and the Beast

La belle et la bête (1946, Beauty and the Beast) is a black and white film created in France by the poet Jean Cocteau.  This is a truly beautiful film which shares its title with the children’s story but is decidedly for adults.

To save her father from the imposition of a death sentence by a frightening werewolf-like beast , a beautiful young woman must agree to substitute herself as the beast’s victim.  When she gets to know him, she realizes that the beast is actually not beast-like at all; he is a sensitive caring being.

Unlike the Disney studios version, this 1946 fairy tale film was never intended for viewing by children.  The visual and poetic beauty of the film cannot obscure  the fact that it deals with many adult themes such as familial duty, longing, frustration,  the real possibility of sudden deadly violence, and a strong undercurrent of repressed sexuality.  The film also has as one of its main characters an animal.

We may not like to acknowledge it, but, biologically, we are animals.  The lesser animals are innocent in their selfishness, but we are not.  We are a mixture of the Law of the Jungle, survival of the fittest, and of our higher impulses.  By our own power, we cannot overcome our self-centered natures (the true essence of sin and separation from God).

In the film, the Beast is redeemed by the pure self-sacrificing love of the Belle.  We are redeemed by accepting the gift of Jesus’ sacrifice and sanctified by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

“That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;   And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;   And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” Ephesians 4:22-24

Notes on the film:

Some of the very creepy visual effects may be frightening for children.  Some more conservative viewers may object when they learn that the beast (Jean Marais) and the film’s director, (Jean Cocteau), were longtime homosexual lovers.

Other films:

Beauty and the Beast (1987)  The pilot film for the same named romantic fantasy television series.

Beauty and the Beast (1991)  The animated musical version made by the Disney studios.