Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast

84 min  -  Animation | Family | Fantasy   -  13 January 2012 (USA)

Directors: Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise
Writers: Linda Woolverton, Roger Allers
Stars: Paige O'Hara, Robby Benson and Richard White

Beauty and the Beast is an American animated fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released to theaters on November 22, 1991 by Walt Disney Pictures. The thirtieth film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film is based on the fairy tale La Belle et la Bête by Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont and uses some ideas from the 1946 film of the same name. The film centers around a prince who is transformed into a Beast and a young woman named Belle whom he imprisons in his castle. To become a prince again, the Beast must love Belle and win her love in return, or he will remain a Beast forever. The film is the third animated feature released during a period known as the "Disney Renaissance", which began in 1989 with The Little Mermaid and ended in 1999 with Tarzan. Many animated films following its release have been influenced by its blending of traditional animation and computer generated imagery. The film's animation screenplay was written by Linda Woolverton with story written by Roger Allers, Brenda Chapman, Chris Sanders, Burny Mattinson, Kevin Harkey, Brian Pimental, Bruce Woodside, Joe Ranft, Tom Ellery, Kelly Ashbury, and Robert Lence, directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, and produced by Don Hahn. The music of the film was composed by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, both of whom had written the music and songs for Disney's The Little Mermaid. Upon its release, Beauty and the Beast was a significant commercial and critical success, earning $403 million in box office earnings throughout the world. Beauty and the Beast was also nominated for several awards, and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy, with two other awards for its music. Famously, Beauty and the Beast was the first ever animated film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, and the last to be nominated until 2009. Beauty and the Beast received a total of six nominations, including Best Picture, Best Original Score, Best Sound, and three nominations for its song. It ended up winning two, for Best Original Score and Best Original Song for the songs "Beauty and the Beast". A direct-to-video midquel called Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas was released in 1997. It was followed in 1998 by another midquel, Belle's Magical World, and later by a stage production of the same name and a television spin-off series, Sing Me a Story with Belle. An IMAX Special Edition version of the original film was released in 2002, with a new five-minute musical sequence included. The film will return to theaters for a limited time in 3-D on January 13, 2012.

Plot

An enchantress disguised as an old beggar woman offers a young prince a rose in exchange for a night's shelter. When he turns her away, she punishes him by transforming him into an ugly Beast and turning his servants into furniture and other household items. She gives him a magic mirror that will enable him to view faraway events, and she gives him the rose, which will bloom until his twenty-first birthday. He must love and be loved in return before all the rose's petals have fallen off, or he will remain a Beast forever. Ten years later, a young, beautiful woman known as Belle comes along, living in a nearby French village with her father Maurice, who is an inventor. Belle loves reading and yearns for a life beyond the village. She is pursued by the arrogant local hero, Gaston, but has no interest in him, despite the fact that he is the most handsome man in town, is sought after by all the single females and is considered godlike in perfection by the male population of the town. When Maurice rides through the woods to display his latest invention, a wood-chopping machine, at a fair, he gets lost on the way and is chased by wolves before stumbling upon the Beast's castle, where he meets the transformed servants Lumiere, Cogsworth, and Mrs. Potts and her son Chip. The Beast imprisons Maurice, but Belle, shortly after declining Gaston's proposal for marriage, is led back to the castle by Maurice's horse and offers to take her father's place. When the Beast agrees to this and sends him home, Maurice tells Gaston and the other villagers what happened, but they think he has lost his mind. At the castle, the Beast orders Belle to dine with him, but she refuses, and Lumiere disobeys his order not to let her eat. After Cogsworth gives her a tour of the castle, she finds the rose in the forbidden west wing and the Beast angrily chases her away. Frightened, she tries to escape, but she and her horse are attacked by wolves. After the Beast rescues her, she nurses his wounds, and he begins to develop feelings for her. He decides to make it up to her and show her the library at Lumiere's suggestion, which impresses Belle and they become friends. They grow closer as they spend more time together and the servants take it upon themselves to clean up the castle and create a romantic evening for them. Back in the village, Gaston, after hearing Maurice's story about Belle being imprisoned by the Beast, pays the warden of the town's insane asylum to lock up Maurice unless Belle agrees to Gaston's marrige proposal and orders his cohort LeFou to wait at the doorstep until they return after discovering their house empty. Back at the castle Belle and the Beast get dressed up, have an elegant dinner and a romantic ballroom dance. The Beast notices Belle seems depressed and he lets her use the magic mirror; she sees her father, who was trying to rescue her from the castle, dying in the woods. With only hours left before the rose wilts, the Beast allows her to leave to rescue her father, giving her the mirror to remember him by. This horrifies the servants, who fear they will never be human again, since the Beast never told them of his reason why he had to let her go. As he watches her leave, the Beast admits to Cogsworth that he loves Belle. Belle finds her father and takes him home, but Gaston arrives with a mob. Unless she agrees to marry Gaston, the manager of the local madhouse will lock up her father. Eventually, Belle proves Maurice sane by showing them the Beast with the magic mirror, but when she says the Beast is her friend and calls Gaston a "monster", he becomes jealous. Gaston arouses the mob's anger against the Beast, and leads them to the castle to kill him. Gaston locks Belle and Maurice in the basement, though Chip, who had hidden himself in Belle's baggage, is able to chop the basement door apart with Maurice's machine. While the servants and Gaston's men fight in the castle, Gaston finds the Beast and attacks him. The Beast is initially too depressed to fight back, but he regains his will when he sees Belle returning to the castle with Maurice. After winning a heated battle, the Beast spares Gaston's life, demanding that he leave the castle and never return. The Beast then climbs up to a balcony where Belle is waiting. Gaston, refusing to admit defeat, follows the Beast and stabs him from behind, but loses his balance and falls to his death. While the Beast is dying from his injuries, Belle whispers that she loves him, breaking the spell just before the last petal drops from the rose. The Beast comes back to life and he becomes human again. As he and Belle kiss, the castle and its grounds return to their previous beautiful state while the servants become human again. Belle and the prince dance in the ballroom with her father and the humanized servants happily watching.

Trailer

Poster

Movie Stills