Beauty and the Beast (1946)

Original title

La Belle et la Bête

Directed by

Jean Cocteau, René Clément

Genre

drama film, fantasy film, cinematic fairy tale

Country

France

Runtime

1h 30m

Rated

16

Rating

7.5 of 10 from 675 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A merchant's daughter volunteers to live with a beast in exchange for her father's life. The beast falls in love with her and she gradually begins to care for him.

poeticdreamlikeromanticwhimsicalvisually lushslow-burnmelancholictender

What happens

Beauty and the Beast (French: La Belle et la Bête – also the UK title) is a 1946 French surrealist romantic fantasy film directed by French poet and filmmaker Jean Cocteau. Starring Josette Day as Belle and Jean Marais as the Beast, it is an adaptation of the 1756 story Beauty and the Beast, written by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont and published as part of a fairy tale anthology. The plot of Cocteau's film revolves around Belle's father, who is sentenced to death for picking a rose from the Beast's garden. Belle offers to go back to the Beast in her father's place. The Beast falls in love with her and proposes marriage on a nightly basis, which she initially refuses. Belle eventually becomes more drawn to the Beast, who tests her by letting her return home to her family, and telling her that if she does not return to him within a week, he will die of grief. Beauty and the Beast is now recognized as a classic of French cinema. It holds a 96% rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on 67 reviews. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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