By Jennifer Baldwin.
“Not only can fairy-tales be enjoyed because they are moral, but morality can be enjoyed because it puts us in fairyland, in a world at once of wonder and of war.”
G.K. Chesterton, Fairy Tales
“It was in fairy stories that I first divined the potency of the words, and the wonder of the things, such as stone, and wood, and iron; tree and grass; house and fire; bread and wine.”
J.R.R. Tolkien, On Fairy Stories
“You stole a rose, so you must die.”
Jean Marais as The Beast in Jean Cocteau’s La Belle et la bête
ONCE UPON A TIME…
A frightened merchant is lost in the woods. He is trying to get back to his home and his children, but instead he stumbles into an enchanted part of the forest.
Branches part; a castle stands in the clearing. Tired and cold, the merchant enters the castle.
The castle itself is enchanted. It is a living castle, where arms come out of the walls to hold candlesticks and statues see with living eyes.
It is a castle where doors and mirrors talk and a rose holds the power of life and death.
It is the castle of a Beast. A beast with a curse.
And only by a look of true love will he find release from his curse. That look will come from a Beauty, a young woman who sacrifices her freedom to save her merchant father, who comes to be a prisoner in the Beast’s castle, and who will eventually come to love him. Continue reading Classic Cinema Obsession: Cocteau’s La Belle et la bête