Wednesday, August 7 @ 7:30 PM / NEIU — The Auditorium at NEIU — 3701 W Bryn Mawr Ave
Tickets: $10 at the door
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
Directed by Jean Cocteau • 1946
In French with English subtitles
Sixteen years after shaking up the film world with his cryptic classical/surreal mashup The Blood of a Poet, 57-year-old polymath Jean Cocteau celebrated the end of the Nazi occupation by directing his second film. His wildly influential take on Mme. de Beaumont’s 18th-century fairy tale would become known for its delightful visual trickery, its Busby Berkeley-level explorations of cinematic space, and camera movements that seem plugged into a universal yet intensely personal dream-logic. Perversely, Cocteau cast his “longtime companion,” chiseled hunk Jean Marais, as the Beast, a cursed prince who enslaves Josette Day’s Belle, ostensibly to punish her father for poaching. Largely invisible under prosthetic fur, fangs, claws, and moveable ears (!), Marais’s performance is powerfully tender and terrifying in equal measure. Of course, the Beast becomes dangerously infatuated with his captive — and we viewers, caught up in this extreme D/s narrative, must contend with our possible complicity. Is this film “merely” a hypnotic study of surfaces and obsessive love, or can it be read as an allegory for life under a brutal, imprisoning force, from a filmmaker who sometimes prankishly expressed sympathy for the Führer? Cocteau, born in 1889, liked to put himself above such debates by claiming to be “the same age” as cinema itself (er, close) and therefore immune to critical interpretation; for him, art was entirely separate from politics. A slippery character, both Wildean icon and Anger-ish troll, whose public statements often clouded the intent of his works, Cocteau remains elusive and compelling, just like the ancient myths and folktales which haunted him and provided fodder for his blazing imagination. (GW)
93 min • Les Films André Paulvé • 35mm from Janus Films
Preceded by: Beasts in Cinema trailer reel – 35mm – 10 min
NEXT UP: There’s Always Tomorrow on Wednesday, August 14 at the Music Box
