One of the “Once Upon a Time Challenge” Quests involves watching fantasy or fairy tale-based movies.  So today we’re going to take a side-trip into Cinema-land.

I decided to revisit a favorite fairy tale, and watched Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.  I haven’t watched it in a long time–not since I got serious about finding the originals of the fairy tales.  Disney’s Beauty and the Beast is pretty far distant from Jean-Marie LePrince de Beaumont’s version–but I like the way they tell it.  Disney’s was the first version I ever saw/read so I’m sure that slants my view, but I do think they manage some clever revisions of elements of the original.

I like the handling of the rose.  Threatening to kill someone because they picked your flowers is, um, unstable behavior.  But that’s pretty much how it goes in the original.  Having the Beast freak out because it’s a special, magical rose tied into his curse is far more reasonable.  I also like it that the Beast locks up Belle’s father for staring at him, rather than messing with the garden.  Sure, it’s a huge over-reaction either way, but if he has to over-react about something, it makes so much more sense that he’d be overly sensitive about people looking at him funny.

I can’t decide how I feel about Belle finding the castle and volunteering to stay, rather than the Beast demanding that Maurice send a daughter to take his place.  On the one hand, I’m sure the goal was to reduce the Beast’s villainy.  But on the other hand, at least in the original he was taking a proactive step towards breaking the spell.  He needs a girl, so he tries to get a girl.  Not in the best possible way, but at least he was making an effort instead of just moping around.

It’s kind of too bad that Belle lost all her siblings who were in the original, but my guess is that was to make space for other supporting characters, so it was probably worth it.  Lumiere and Cogsworth are really wonderful, and Gaston is a brilliant addition too.

Gaston, besides adding extra comic relief, is a great idea because it gives the story a villain.  In the original, Beauty’s sisters are pretty nasty, and I think a case could be made for the enchantress as the villain, but nothing is clear-cut.

Gaston’s main contribution, I think, is all in the last couple scenes.  First, bringing the mob adds great extra tension, as well as being a fantastic example of mob mentality.  It just needs one charismatic leader and everyone else is swept along (you see the same thing in Disney’s Hunchback, only more so; that crowd makes hairpin turns about three times).  I also love the way the mob demonstrates fear of the Other.  The line “we don’t like what we don’t understand; in fact, it scares us, and this monster is mysterious at least” says it all.

Gaston’s most important purpose, though, is that his presence means there’s someone to kill the Beast.  In the original we have this disturbing bit where the Beast tells Beauty she can leave if she wants to but it’ll kill him, and then when she goes, he tries to starve himself to death.  That’s seriously manipulative and unhealthy.  It’s so much better to have it play out with the Beast sad that she left but not dying–until he’s stabbed by Gaston.

There’s just one thing I don’t understand in this movie.  The spell has to be broken by the Beast’s 21st birthday?  Lumiere tells us, “ten years we’ve been rusting.”  So…this encounter with the enchantress happened when the Beast/Prince was eleven?  Isn’t turning a bratty kid into a monster kind of an over-reaction?  Okay, he was nasty to her, but show a little maturity!  And it doesn’t seem to me that the Beast learned anything much about seeing past appearances.  Belle did that (and as a reward, she gets to marry someone handsome…?) but the Beast went and fell for a beautiful girl, so what’s proved?

But aside from a few of the weirdnesses that often crop up in fairy tales, it’s a wonderful version.  And when I hunted down and read the original, I was so glad to find out that Belle’s love of books goes back to Beaumont.  That’s a favorite part of the movie–and I think everyone I know who loves to read wants the Beast’s library!