Beauty and the Beast

Is this the undisputed masterpiece of the Disney Renaissance? If it’s not the top choice for that honor, it’s damn close. It plays less like a traditionally animated Disney feature, and more like a long-lost MGM musical. The animation is lush, the characters are memorable, the songs are lively, and it’s no wonder that this was the first animated film to get a Best Picture nomination, as it is one of the highest points in Disney’s filmography.

Sure, when it comes to filmed versions of the fairy tale this is second fiddle to Jean Cocteau’s masterpiece, but this one also does nicely on its own. Shockingly, this version retains a strong fidelity to the source material, Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont’s well-known variation of the tale. Being Disney, much of the implicit sexuality has been scrubbed clean, but the rest of the basic materials and story beats are all there.

This is the sight of the studio producing something while all of the talents involved are working at their peak artistic capabilities. Not an ounce of story time is wasted, every major character is developed with clear wants and needs, and every song is in service of the story. The vocal talent, an ensemble of beloved Broadway veterans and character actors, is first-rate, and the animation is elegant.

The Little Mermaid first brought back the multi-plane camera and various other tricks from the Golden Era, but Beauty and the Beast used them more grandly. It’s clear from the opening pane through the forest to the Beast’s castle that we’re dealing with a huge budget, and much time and effort has been placed into this. The sweeping romance of the ballroom sequence has become as memorable a sequence as Cinderella’s transformation or Pinocchio’s nose continuing to grow as he lies.

Much has been made about the central romance, but I never placed much stock in the reading of it as Stockholm Syndrome. Belle never feels romantic yearnings towards the Beast until he exhibits a clear change in temperament and personality, until he essentially grows up. When she gets the chance to leave his castle, she runs away, only returning to the castle to nurse the Beast’s wounds or try and stop the villagers from harming him. She consistently stands up to him, refuses to engage in his tantrums, and calls him out every chance she gets. Romance only enters her mind after she realizes he’s an outcast kindred spirit, much like her, and finds an empathetic connection with his wounded soul.

If I could pinpoint the lone element that ties it all together and makes it work so beautiful, it would be that fantasy is a medium of ideas of things and not their actuality. Filmed fantasy stories need to be built upon a foundation of dreams and imagination, not on actuality. Beauty and the Beast presents us with places and dangers that feel more dream-like than real. Beast’s castle is all glowering and menacing gargoyles, stacked one on top of the other, as far as the eye can see, or a library the size of three rooms. The woods around his castle are filled with wolves that are more glowering and vengeful than they would be in real life, comprised mostly of fangs and hunched shoulders.

The only element that feels even remotely like an intrusion from real life is Gaston and his band of merry assholes. Gaston’s the pinnacle of heteronormative patriarchy ran amuck. He feeds into every stereotypical gender role, every male power fantasy, and I’m certain every girl has at least three stories about men like him. Knowing that a gay man wrote the lyrics to his call to arms against the Beast, this film’s version of the mysterious “Other,” adds an extra dimension to his dangerous nature. Gaston’s urge to unite the masses with fear and propaganda against it, and to ultimately try and destroy it feels like the real world poking through the fantasy. Every fantasy film has this moment, and if done correctly makes the fantastical elements pop more and tie together better. It’s done very well here.

This film is as good as fairy tale cinema can be, and definitely one of the higher points in the history of Disney. Everything works here, and it can easily be viewed as an animated spin on a Broadway musical, no surprise that Disney quickly turned it into one. There’s Busby Berkeley style musical romps, sentimental ballads, lively group numbers, all in service of telling a solid story. Undoubtedly, the Renaissance’s answer to Sleeping Beauty or Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Beauty and the Beast easily rests in their pantheon of great fairy tale adaptations.