LA BELLE ET LA BÊTE

GUILLERMO DEL TORO was attached to the 2017 Disney Beauty And The Beast, eventually directed by Bill Condon. Given the Mexican auteur once called Jean Cocteau’s La Belle Et La Bête (1946) the “most perfect cinematic fable ever told”, he might have just been plain old intimidated. Intoxicating, poetic and immensely moving, the film was made as an escape for a war-ravaged France and has survived to become the definitive version of Beauty And The Beast. Del Toro didn’t abandon the idea completely: The Shape Of Water is nothing if not La Belle Et La Bête with gills.

This film’s magical charm is encapsulated in the stunning moment Beast (Jean Marais) carries Belle (Josette Day), who has fainted at the sight of the creature, through his enchanted castle. The scene relies on primitive (even for the time) in-camera effects or, as Cocteau wrote, “Tricks but honest tricks, the only ones I can get excited about.” The most iconic of these is the candelabras held up by arms that light up on their own. Achieved simply by actors hiding behind black drapes, this bargain-basement surrealism is key to the film’s power.

Shot at Saint-maurice Studios in Paris, the lo-fi look was also a necessity, the troubled production plagued by antiquated equipment and power failures — aptly enough, the set movers worked by candlelight. The problems were compounded by tension between Cocteau and his new cameraman, Henri Alekan. Throughout the shoot, Alekan wanted a soft, diffuse fairy-tale look; Cocteau wanted a more hard-edged look to ground the fantasy in reality. “I drive Alekan to the opposite of what appears poetic for fools,” he wrote. Cocteau won out in the end.

To play the Beast, Jean Marais had to undergo five hours of work each day for the transformation, with every visible part of his body covered in animal fur and fangs ensuring he could only eat mush during the day. Bizarrely the director could empathise with his star

— during the shoot, Cocteau was hospitalised with eczema. “On my face there’s plenty of cracks, wounds and itches and my hands are bleeding, but the face and hands of Jean Marais are covered with a so painful crust, removing it is similar to my treatments.”

The finished film was so good it discouraged Walt Disney from making his own version and also influenced the two later Disney adaptations in a significant way. This sense of a castle coming to life was a Cocteau invention not present in Jeannemarie Leprince de Beaumont’s fairy tale. No Cocteau, no sentient candelabras, singing teapots or dancing dishes. If you want to thank M. Cocteau, be our guest.

LA BELLE ET LA BAETE IS OUT ON 23 JULY ON BLU-RAY. IT IS AVAILABLE NOW ON DVD AND BFI PLAYER