Tale as Old as Time

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Beauty and the Beast is a classical French fairy tale, said to first have been written by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve. Individual elements of the story have passed through generations of verbal retellings before coming together in this timeless tale. In its essence, Beauty and the Beast is about seeing past what is on the outside and learning to love selflessly.

In the original tale, Belle must take her father’s place when he is imprisoned for stealing her a rose from the Beast’s garden. When she grows homesick, she is allowed to visit home, as long as she promises to return within a week. When her sisters beg her to stay, she breaks her promise, and then discovers the Beast to be dying from heartbreak. She rushes to him and confesses her love, and he is then transformed back into a handsome prince, the curse broken by true love.

This month’s release of Disney’s live-action Beauty and the Beast is the 15th film adaptation of the classic tale. Here are some of the best and worst past renditions.

La Belle et la Bête (1946)

This romantic French adaptation was the first widely-distributed film based on the fairy tale, and has gained recognition as a classic of French cinema. It stars Josette Day and Jean Marais as the lead characters, and was directed by Jean Cocteau. The plot follows the de Villeneuve story quite closely, and revolves around Belle willingly taking her father’s place at the Beast’s castle.

The film is one of the most traditional interpretations of the fairy tale, and although it is a beautifully told story, some elements do not compare to latter versions.

Although the Beast looks a little bit like an overgrown cat, the music and set-up of the shots that he is in create an aura of fear around him that sells his character well. The actions of this Beast are not particularly aligned with his gentle-heartedness typically unravelling slowly throughout the plot. He snoops through Belle’s room and perches around her quite creepily, which hints more at simply human flaws, rather than the dread of a Beast.

Beauty and the Beast (1987)

More than 40 years after the first film version of Beauty and the Beast, Cannon Films created their take on the tale, making it into a musical. It takes much after the 1946 film in terms of the plot, but portrays the characters very differently.

For example, Josette Day’s Belle is much more assured in herself and what she wants, while Rebecca De Mornay’s Beauty in this film appears to only exist for the pleasure of others. Whilst this version introduces a handful of new supporting characters within the castle, whereas the previous had none, it does very little to bring life to the story.

The Beast, played by John Savage, does not look particularly scary and falls rather flat considering his gentle heart typically should be unravelling through time. The movie contains the classic elements - the rose, the enchanted castle and master, and Beauty’s quest to find her place - but falls short in simply being too slow to reach any kind of climax.

Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (1991)

Disney’s animated adaptation strays far from the source material. Among the bigger differences are the addition of a lot of supporting characters, the rose being linked more to the enchantment, and that Beauty does not vow to return to the Beast in the end.

It does, however, more so than the 1987 version, utilise songs to further the story. This is especially clear in Something There, during which Belle first starts to question if there is more to the Beast. In this movie, Belle seems to seek her own happiness rather than the happiness of others, which makes the story somewhat more believable for its time.

If the message of all these movies is the same one - to look with your heart, not your eyes - the Disney film may actually portray this best. Although the Beast is hot-tempered and hostile at first, he very quickly starts to show more sides to himself to Belle. This is compared to that him searching through Belle’s private room in the 1946 adaptation. Moreover, because the Beast does not tell Belle what will happen if she does not return to him after seeing her father, this return is understood to be more out of love than simply guilt.

Beastly (2011)

Beastly is a modern-day retelling of the tale, set in New York and loosely based on a novel by Alex Flinn. Because of this twist, a few things get very lost in translation. The plot differs widely from the rest of the films, and these changes do nothing to benefit the movie.

This movie’s version of Belle, named Lindy (played by Vanessa Hudgens), does not choose to be locked away with the Beast, and she has an ongoing romantic involvement with the Beast’s prior-to-transformation character, Kyle Kingson (Alex Pettyfer).

Perhaps the biggest downfall of this modernised fairy tale is that it messes with the assumed premise that the Beast is meant to be dreadfully hideous. Hunter, Kyle’s post-enchantment alter-ego, looks like a mix between a rapper and a burn victim, following his witchy transformation from the “ugly” Kendra (Mary-Kate Olsen), who could have walked straight off a Milan fashion runway. Neil Patrick Harris is Kyle’s home teacher and serves as the only well-timed laugh, which feels well-deserved if you sit through the rest of the movie.

Beastly attempts to drag the original story’s classical concepts into the plot, but fails to do so. For example, the Hunter builds a greenhouse for roses on his roof, but there’s no explanation why.

Beauty and the Beast (2017)

This month, Disney release their live-action adaptation of their 1991 Beauty and the Beast animation. The film stars Emma Watson and Dan Stevens, is directed by Bill Condon, and draws upon all the magic of the animated movie.

The songs are the same, with very few changes, but the tale truly comes alive with the combination of magical and realistic elements, in particular the grandeur of the Beast’s castle, the look of the Beast, and the incorporation of the quirky and adorable supporting characters.

The newest addition to the long list of Beauty and the Beast adaptations brings together some of the best elements of the past ones. These include the immaculate musical score from the Disney animated version, the incorporation of the classical elements - the rose, the magical mirror, the enchanted castle - from the older 1946 and 1987 films, and even an occasional well-timed laugh, like we saw in Beastly.

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