BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

Sunday, April 19th at 1:00 p.m. and Tuesday, April 21st at 7:00 p.m.
Admission: FREE

All ESSENTIAL CINEMA films screen Sunday at 1:00 p.m. and Tuesday at 7:00 p.m., and admission is FREE!
See classic art films the way they were meant to be seen - on the big screen in glorious new 35 mm prints!

"Cocteau's reworking of the classic fairy tale is a magical passage to a more impassioned and bewitching era." - Michael Wilmington, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) was a brilliant polymath, one of the most scintillating figures in 20th century French culture: poet, painter, novelist, playwright, sculptor, film director, set designer, actor and critic. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, his third production, based upon an 18th century fairy tale, is an elaborate, surreal parable for adults, filled with Freudian allusions and special effects that reflect Cocteau’s poetic sleight of hand.
The story is simplicity itself: a beautiful young woman, oppressed by her rapacious stepmother and sisters (shades of Cinderella), asks her father for a single rose as a souvenir from his travels. But the merchant steals the rose from the garden of an enchanted beast who will spare him on the condition that his daughter return in his stead.
Cocteau’s vision has magnificent, surrealist touches that once viewed, remain with you forever: the Beast’s fabulous castle, complete with baroque, human arm sconces that follow Beauty as she moves through its corridors; the Beast’s steaming claws (symbolic of a recent kill); Beauty’s tear which transforms into a diamond; the Vermeer-inspired design of her country home. Christian Berard’s costumes and production design have been compared to the art of Gustave Dore and Henri Alekan’s photography to “the soft gleam of hand-polished old silver” (Cocteau).
Jean Marais plays three roles, but is unforgettable as the frightening, alluring, hirsute beast who falls in love with Beauty, and elicits from her feelings that dwell some place between compassion and passion. (Marais was also Cocteau’s long-term lover and muse, and a major French matinee idol). Josette Day as Beauty had been a child dancer with the Paris Opera; her exquisite finesse and grace imbue her character with an otherworldly sensuality that even a Beast finds irresistible.
With BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, Cocteau has transformed a deceptively simple children's fable into a complex and radiant cinematic classic.

Essential Cinema is sponsored by The Arizona Opera, The Arizona Commission on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts.