Beauty and the Beast
or
Belle
or
Dare to Love the Beast?
or
He Conquers, Who Conquers Himself
Plot
The 1991 Beauty and the Beast tells the story of a selfish and uncaring boy who has been cursed and turned into a beast. The only way to break the curse is to gain someone’s love and acceptance. Will Belle a woman trapped in the castle be the one to fall for the Beast?
Original Story
The original story of Beauty and the Beast was written by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve.
Film Development
The Disney company wanted to make Beauty and the Beast an animated feature since back in the 1930’s however the writers always had problems developing the story to suit an animated feature directed to children. This didn’t stop them from seriously trying though. The second serious attempt was in the 1950’s and again they had the same problems as in the 30’s it took until 1980’s before they would try again and this time they finally hit the nail on the head but it wasn’t after going through some trial and error. For example Richard Purdum, a British animator was brought in to adapt the film but his ideas were too dark and had no musical intensions whatsoever so instead Linda Woolverton was brought into the Beauty and the Beast team to rework the scripts. Her only previous Disney work had been on Chip ‘n’ Dale Rescue Rangers. Jeffrey Katzenberg, the then chairman of Walt Disney Studios brought in Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale to direct the film. The reason why Ron Clements and John Musker didn’t direct the film is because they were exhausted from working on The Little Mermaid.
When developing the feature there were two scenes that were cut because they were seen as too dark, one was when Gaston went to visit an Asylum, instead the Asylum keeper visited the tavern. The second was going to show Beast pulling an animal carcass across the floor in the west wing which was going to show just how far Beast was turning into, well, a Beast. Apparently in the west wing, if you look very closely you can see animal bones and bodies, but due to the dark nature of the room its very tricky.
During the early days of the film Belle was going to have one or two sisters, one being called Clarice. They were going to be reminiscent of Cinderella’s step sisters in the sense that they would be self obsesses. There only purpose: to show a nice contrast of personality between Belle and her sisters. Jeffrey Katzenberg didn’t think they were crucial to the story and therefore axed from the film.
This is the second time Disney collaborated with Pixar to use the CAPS, Computer Animated Production System to create the ballroom scene. It was with this system that they were able to make it look like a camera was following Belle and Beast around the room while they danced. As CAPS was so new for Disney they weren’t sure it was going to work so they had a back up idea which was going to have Belle and Beast dancing in a pitch black room with a spotlight lighting them up. Luckily they were able to use CAPS and they did such a good job with this scene that Disney won a scientific and technical Academy Award for the design and development of the CAPS system.
When the film was roughly 70% finished it was premiered at the New York Film festival. This was a big risk for the company as many parts of the film were still uncoloured pencil tests which would have made the film a lot more disjointed and harder to follow, however none of this really affected the response of the audience because it received a 10 minute standing ovation.
Characters
Belle
Belle has been specifically designed to stand out from the people of the town and the normal Disney princesses in general. The most obvious being her looks, being brown haired instead of blonde and being the only person in her town to wear blue. This idea was chosen by Brian McEntee. The only other character to wear blue is Beast when he wears his suit for the ball, showing how they fit together. Belle is also one of the few Disney characters who appreciate reading and educating themselves. This was also done as a small nod to the phrase “don’t judge a book by its cover”.
Belle was voiced by Paige O’ Hara, originally it was planned for her to be voiced by Jodi Benson the voice of Ariel but because they wanted a more European voice they chose Paige.
As you might know Disney animators use the looks and habits of the voice actors to help animate their characters, well this time it’s no different because the reason Belle is always pushing her hair out of her face is because Paige O’ Hara was filmed doing this.
The live action reference model for Belle was Sherri Stoner, the same for Ariel.
When you watch Belle walk next time you see the film, make sure you notice how elegant and poised the character of Belle is during the movie, this is because James Baxter, a Disney animator, studied ballet and used the way ballerinas move as the ways Belle would move. It helped in making Belle a more feminine and softer character and therefore more of a contrast to Beast and Gaston.
Beast
It is never revealed in the film what Beasts human name is, however most people agree he is called Adam and this is because this is the name revealed in the Broadway show of the film.
Glen Keane was the animator for the Beast but it was Chris Sanders who designing him, he came up with several different accumulation of different animals blended together to make this beast, the different sculptures around Beasts castle, they are early versions of Beast, before finally settling on this assortment: he has a full mane modelled of a lion, head of a buffalo, brow of a gorilla, tusks of a boar, body of a bear and legs and tail of a wolf. It was also in his voice that they decided to add in animal elements. The sounds of panthers and lions were digitally mixed into Robby Benson’s, his voice actor, voice. The only time before his transformation that we don’t hear the animal mix in his voice is during the song “Something There” because it’s sung through his minds thoughts.
The scene where Beast finally transforms at the end of the movie, there is smoke and lights, the smoke is not animated it is real, they first learnt to do this for The Black Cauldron and I definitely think it has helped to make the scene more magical and mysterious. During this change from Beast to man, some people, Glen Keane included, believe that the Beast should have never changed back into a human and remained a Beast. To add some relief to the scene Glen suggested adding in the line where Belle says “Do you think you could grow a beard?” However it never made it into the film as they didn’t think it was appropriate. But if you watch the Live action 2017 version the line sneaks in.
Gaston
There were many different people who auditioned for the role of Gaston, one of which was Rupert Everett, he was turned down for the role because he wasn’t arrogant enough. Later in his life when Rupert auditioned for the role of Prince Charming in Shrek 2, he remembered to be much more arrogant, it obviously worked because he won the role. The person who did win the role of Gaston was Richard White and he was animated by Andreas Deja who has stated on his blog that Gaston is one of the most difficult characters he has had to animate.
To get the right look of Gaston, Andreas researched body builders.
Instead of having Gaston fall to his death, the Disney team suggested having his survive the fall but then become ripped to death by wolves. Obviously this was all too long winged so death by fall became Gaston’s downfall. You know he died because if you look really closely, tiny little skulls appear.
Mrs. Potts
Mrs. Potts was not always going to be called this, other names were Mrs. Chamomile, Mrs Darjeeling, basically any tea flavours, however Mrs. Potts was chosen because of how simple and to the point it was.
Julie Andrews (Mary Poppins) was considered for the role of Mrs. Potts but instead the role went to Angela Lansbury due to the warmth she delivered in the characters lines.
Chip
Chip wasn’t meant to be as sweet as he is in the film, that role was going to go to a music box the animators had designed, which would communicate through musical notes, you can actually see the music box stood next to Lumière right before the fight begins towards the end of the film. Chip was voiced by Bradley Michael Pierce and he was only meant to voice one line in the entire film but due to how adorable his voice actor made him sound, he was given many more lines
Cogsworth and Lumière
The role of Cogsworth was written specifically for John Cleese who starred in many of the Monty Python films, however he turned down the role and instead it was given to David Ogden Stiers who originally auditioned for Lumière, but was given the role of the narrator along with the voice of Cogsworth. David Ogden Spires adlibbed the line “Flowers, chocolates, promises you don’t intend to keep” when he is talking to Beast before Beast shows Belle the library. In fact the voice cast were encourage to add in their own lines whenever they felt inspired. For example Beast and Belle adlibbed the part about two and two when reading Beauty and the Beast.
Lumière was voiced by Jerry Orbach.
Music
The music we hear in the movie is the work of both the talented Howard Ashman and Alan Menken.
The title song “Beauty and the Beast” is a famous and much loved song today but the original version was a lot more like a rock ballad and wasn’t approved by Angela Lansbury, the voice of Mrs. Potts. The director invited Angela to perform the version that she thought was appropriate for the movie. Her version is the version we hear today. All I can say is: “Thank you Angela”. This song ended up winning an academy award.
Belle was the first song that was written for the feature and Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, the composers and lyricists for the film were extremely nervous to offer their creation because they didn’t know how well it was going to be received. It is very different from other song simply because of how theatrical it is and how much it moves the story along, it introduces Belle, the towns people, Gaston and Le Fou. Obviously the Disney company loved it and so do I.
Belle the song is also famous for the fact that it is the “I want” song of the movie. It basically allows the audience to get to know Belle and find out what she wants in the movie. For Ariel it was “Part of Your World”. Nearly all the Disney Princesses have an I want song. The visual accompaniment to the Belle reprise where she is running off into the fields to sing is an echo of Julie Andrews in “The Sound of Music”.
The song “Be Our Guest” (my personal favourite) was originally going to be sung to Maurice when he first entered the castle and was being welcomed in by Lumière and Cogsworth, however Bruce Woodside, a story supervisor, noticed that this was a first class song and they were wasting it on a second rate character so the song was changed to later in the film and to be sung to Belle.
One of the benefits of having all of these lyrically beautiful and descriptive songs is that it makes it really easy to animate, this is most obvious in the Gaston song. For example when he sing “I use antlers in all of my decorating” suddenly there is a scene showing all of his antlers. There are a lot of example of this in the song.
Human Again was a song that was originally going to be 11 minutes long, but it kept of getting shortened to the point that it needed to be cut out. It was replaced with the song “Something There”. The stage version of Beauty and the Beast had included it into their show and when Gary and Kirk watched the stage show and seeing how they had done it, inspired them to add it into their version on later video and DVD releases.
Disney really wanted to include a Beast song, but they didn’t know how or when they were going to introduce it which is why it’s absent from the film. This is one of the things the 2017 live action Beauty and the Beast film makes up for.
Celine Dion and Peabo Bryson were asked to perform the ending credits song which was a pop version of the song Beauty and the Beast and this is the first time a Disney song was transformed into a pop song.
There is so much music and song in the movie that there is only 5 minutes in the entire film where the is no music at all. In fact there were song that never made it into the film. For example Howard Ashman decided that Maurice, Belle’s father needed to be an inventor so that he could include a song that was going to be titled “Invention Convention”.
Dedication
Howard Ashman sadly passed away 8 months prior to the release of the film due to aids which is why this film is dedicated to him, by the end Howard was working from his bed, barely able to speak but still striving to make points of improvement for the music. The dedication at the end of the film states: “To our friend Howard, who gave a mermaid her voice and a beast his soul, we will be forever grateful.”
Awards
This was the first animation to be nominated for an academy award for Best Picture. Sadly it lost to Silence of the Lambs. However it did win a Golden Globe for Best Picture Musical or Comedy.
It also was nominated for an Oscar for best song including Belle, Beauty and the Beast and Be Our Guest and it won with Beauty and the Beast. Sadly as Howard Ashman had already died when this award was given his long time romantic partner Bill Lauch accepted the award on his behalf.
In 2002, because this film has been viewed as historically and aesthetically significant it has been chosen by the Library of Congress for the National film registry. Other films to be chosen have been The Lion King, The Breakfast Club, 20,000 leagues Under the Sea, Bambi, The Silence of the Lambs and many more.
Easter Eggs
There are so many Easter Eggs in this film it is going to impossible to name them all so here are my favourites:
When Maurice is trying to find his way in the woods he comes across several signs stacked upon one another. One sign says Anaheim, another points to Valencia which is where Cal Arts is located. Cal Arts is the college Walt Disney founded to train people in animation, many famous Disney and Pixar employees learnt their skills from this college.
You can spot Belle in The Hunchback of Notre Dame and you can spot the beast in Aladdin. Bambi can be spotted in the opening scenes of Beauty and the Beast and talking of cameos; you can spot the real life Paige O’ Hara, voice of Belle in Enchanted. She is the person in the soap opera programme that the prince watches in the motel.
You can see caricatures of Garry Trousdale and Kirk Wise, the films directors during the scene when Belle exits the book shop, they are either side of the man in the middle.
There is a Wilhelm scream during the fight scene towards the end of the movie, which is the first time it has been used in an animated movie.
The scene at the end of the film when Beast and Belle are dancing is copy of a dance in Sleeping Beauty between Aurora and Prince Phillip. It was copied using recycled animation. Recycled animation is when animators will reuse animation from previous animated films. This would happen through drawing over existing animation cells with new characters and settings but with similar movements. This process is called rotoscoping.
A lot of people believe that recycled animation is done to save time and this is true, it does, but animators still need to draw the characters which takes time so this isn’t the only reason they used recycled animation. A lot of the reused animation is of dancing or two or more characters coming in contact with each other, which from an animators point of view is more tricky to do than scenes where they don’t come in contact. So if you start off with a sequence that you know works it will make it easier to make the scene work. In my opinion there is no point in coming up with a brand new sequence of moves when previous sequences can be used. Personally as long as it doesn’t seem forced, I don’t see what the problem is.
The Problem
This film, in my opinion, is practically perfect, but there is one major problem that people have discussed and theorized again and again and here it is. At the beginning of the film the Enchantress states that the rose will bloom until the prince is 21 and then during “Be Our Guest” Lumière states “10 years we’ve been rusting”. This means that the Beast has to have been cursed when he was around 11, which if you ask me is a bit too young. The other thing that the audience has noticed is that the picture that the Beast rips with his claws is of someone who is at least 18. Also the last conundrum is Chip. If the beast was cursed when he was 10 and he is now 20, nearing 21 and Chip cannot be older than 7, what is the explanation for this? Does this means that Mrs. Potts conceived as a tea pot and gave birth to a cup? I mean, just no, no, no, no, no, no. The solution to this slightly weird idea is that maybe the objects like Lumière, Chip, Mrs. Potts, Cogsworth, etc are frozen in time and cannot age. This would make sense as I have always thought that cursing the Beasts staff has just pushed things too far, so at least when the curse is broken the staff haven’t lost any of their time.
But what about the Beast and that picture he slashed? Well one solution is that the picture wasn’t him, but his father and he was blaming him for how he turned out? But what about what Lumière said? Simply an over exaggeration? A lot of this is opinion and nit picking, but please do tell me your thoughts on this problem in the comments?
Bits and Bobs
- The animators were encouraged to hit Le Fou as much as possible during the feature.
- The film earned over 100 million dollars at the box office.
- Joe Ranft did a lot of the scream sounds for the fight scene at the end of the movie.
- In China Jackie Chan voiced the Beast.
- This was the first time that during the credits the animators were given credit for the characters they had designed and animated.
Disney Inside 
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