VHS Movie Reviews for Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast

	List Price: ~~$19.95~~ Our Price: $6.49 You Save: $13.46 (67%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $2.69 (click here) Category: VHS Video See more movie releases

Buy this VHS video movie at online store in your country
Canada

VHS Movie Reviews of Beauty and the Beast

Movie Review: Criterion collection film trashed by Disney
Summary: 5 Stars

This was a great move for the Criterion Collection to rerelease a film and classic story that was ruined by the Disney version.
This film is much more true to the original story. Disney even stole ideas from this release to put in their version and never credited Cocteau for what they took from him.

The special makeup effects for the beast are nothing short of incredible considering when this film was made. This film is also credited with reviving French cinema which had been ravaged by the German occupation.

It was an early attempt to present a child's fairy tale for an adult audience. The Criterion edition also has the excellent Phillip Glass opera available for the secondary audio track.

Movie Review: The Magic Of French Cinema: Film Lover's Collection
Summary: 5 Stars

The 1947 French Cocteau classic, "La Belle Et La Bete" (Beauty and the Beast)was revolutionary in its day and on this new DVD, we get all the scoop on the making of this film and the masterpiece of French cinema. There is commentary by cultural historians and film critics, insight from the director, cinematographer and the cast and even more impressive, the opera by Phillip Glass, which he modeled after this same film. The film stars Josette Day as Belle and a costumed and frightening Jean Marais as the Beast. This film was released when World War II still weighed on people's shoulders. The French cinema was taking the film world by storm. It would be only one of many Cocteau films, though most assuredly his best work. The most impressive aspect of this film is its special effects and cinematography. Cocteau infused the film with surrealism and magic, enhanced by special effects which were new at the time, though tame and old-fashioned by today's standards. Before the digital, computer-generated image, there was "camera tricks". Cocteau was wise to make a film set to an enchanted fairy tale. He was able to make the bewitched castle seem alive. There is a prevailing eerie mood. Gargoyle, stone statuary, noctunal moods, voices, talking mirrors and doors, doors which open and close on their own and dimly lit candelabrum made the interior of the Beasts castle supremely Gothic and sensational.

As far as the acting goes, the cast does a good job at deliviring a good performance eventhough they are portraying fantasy characters. Josette Day is a beautiful and noble heroine as Belle and the Beast, monstrous in looks but gentle of spirit and kind hearted in a more human way. The story is more true to the original concept of Beauty and the Beast. This is not to be mistaken with the Disney 1991 animated film. There is very little cuteness and charm in this one. It's presented as a serious work of cinema. A must have for cinema students.

Movie Review: Beautiful
Summary: 5 Stars

This is a beautiful version of the "Beauty and the Beast" fairy tale. Cocteau creates a dreamlike world of fantasy and illusion. There are two versions of the film available on this disk - one with spoken words and one with opera singing. Both are French, subtitled in English. I watched this movie twice in one evening - once with the spoken dialogue, once with the opera track. I was enchanted by the beauty of the story, and the black and white picture adds to the mystery. This is a film that I would watch again and again.

Movie Review: "True Experience Must Be Unique." - Cocteau
Summary: 5 Stars

Beauty and the Beast is based on Madame de Beaumont's fairy tale with the same name, and Cocteau's adaptation is strikingly alike the original with a few exceptions. The story begins with Cocteau explaining himself in the beginning of the film with a small statement in regards to children and their naiveté and then the film opens as most fairy tales do with, "Once upon a time..." The father is raising one son, Ludovic, and three daughters, Felicie, Adelaide, and Belle (translated to Beauty) by himself. Felicie and Adelaide are the malicious daughters that openly expresses their greed, sloth, and envy as they hurt Belle. The son brings the family to the brink of poverty as he loses the family's furniture and valuables in a gambling debt. On the way home from attempting to settle the debt, the father gets lost in a storm and he finds what seems to be a deserted magical castle. In the morning when the father gets ready to leave the castle he finds a rose and remembers that Belle's wish was to receive a rose, however, the Beast appears and expresses his dislike for theft of the rose and tells him that he must pay with his life or the life of a daughter. When Belle finds out she caused her father this anguish she voluntarily gives herself to the Beast. Beauty and the Beast is a fairy tale that teaches lessons as stories should, and there are several lessons worth learning in this magnificent adaptation by Cocteau. The special effects in the film enhance the magic as Cocteau presents his vision of Madame de Beaumont's fairy tale. Overall, the supreme realism which is observed in the Beast's humanity is a major factor in the films influence of a brilliant cinematic experience.

As Jean Cocteau stated in his essay of his own film, Beauty and the Beast, "I have tried to give you something of what led me into an experience that I shall not repeat, because true experience must be unique. I can only compare it once again to the casting forth of a seed, which falls on favorable or unfavorable ground, blowing where it will." Hence, Beauty and the Beast is truly a unique cinematic experience.