Cocteau: La Belle et la Bête

[Terry]

I just saw this for the first time and think it's the most beautiful and sorrowful film I've ever seen. I watched it with the synchronized Philip Glass opera (available on the 2003 Criterion release,) and while I'm sure the Haters will excrete all over it as usual, I think the effect with the Glass score is brilliant. The melodies are a little rambling, rather like in Debussy's opera of Pelleas et Melisande, but overall I'm stunned.

Quite a novel approach: replace the existing audio of a sound film with a new wall-to-wall musical score and convert all the spoken dialogue into synchronized singing. I think Glass has written scores for two other Cocteau films as well. If the trend continues, maybe someone will get around to Welles some day. Shanghai might be a good one to do, since Welles was appalled by the sound in that one anyway.

[Tony]

Store:
I have thought before that it will soon, if not already be, possible to change the music in a film, and Shanghai would be the perfect place to begin with Welles: either a new score, or preferably (in my mind) choose chunks of Herrmann, who should have scored it. One could go with Herrmann scores for other directors (film or television), or use excerpts from his symphonic, operatic and chamber works.

Incidentally, the Herrmann web-site is back up and running after (I think) changing "owners":

http://www.bernardherrmann.org/

Aa for other Welles films, I'm not sure: he usually had the best, except for the Stranger (Herrmann required again). Some don't like Mancini's TOE, but I think it's a masterpiece; I dearly wish the dvd had an option to play the opening music!
:;):

[Tashman]

Hope you've watched Cocteau without the accompaniment too.

And if you haven't seen and heard MISHIMA, be sure and check that out.

[Terry]

Huh. I've watched Belle and Bête 6 times now with the Glass score. I'm obsessed. Haven't made it to Jean's own soundtrack yet, which is a bit silly of me.

Haven't seen Mishima in a long time. Paul Schrader, wasn't it? Damn good film. While I like Philip Glass' music on its own, it certainly lends a hypnotic intensity to any film it accompanies, and may even be best when paired with a visual element (I never cared for the Belle et Bête opera as music on its own, but I love it with Cocteau's wonderful film.)

I've been thinking about redubbing Shanghai with Benny H music. I almost have enough software and know-how to do it. Certainly a lot of great music to choose from!

[Tony]

Just keep it obscure Benny music, and I think it would really work. :laugh:

[Cole]

I haven't seen it in several years, but I remember "Beauty and the Beast" as being very good. I don't recall anything about the musical score, however.

[The Night Man]

I haven't seen it in several years, but I remember "Beauty and the Beast" as being very good. I don't recall anything about the musical score, however.

The score by Georges Auric is a classic.

[Tashman]

I haven't seen it in several years, but I remember "Beauty and the Beast" as being very good. I don't recall anything about the musical score, however.

The score by Georges Auric is a classic.

And the pic is very great.

[The Night Man]

And the pic is very great.

Absolutely true. I don't mean to suggest that the score outshines the film. Classic film, classic score.

[Harvey Chartrand]

Jean Marais, the very handsome and talented actor who played la Bête, co-starred with Orson Welles in Royal Affairs in Versailles/Si Versailles m'était conté (1954), Napoléon (1955) and Austerlitz (1960), although they didn't appear together onscreen in these bloated and static historical epics – an endless series of tableaux of beautifully costumed celebrities talking against sumptuous décors – but these creaking patriotic vehicles do have a certain nostalgic appeal to this old Frenchman who yearns for "le bon vieux temps" of 50 years ago as he contemplates the chasm into which our civilization is falling.

Marais must have known Welles through their connection to Jean Cocteau, a great champion of Welles in Europe. Welles and Cocteau appeared in the 1949 documentary short subject Désordre, directed by Jacques Baratier.

[Le Chiffre]

Welles and Cocteau appeared in the 1949 documentary short subject Désordre, directed by Jacques Baratier.

Hmmm, I wonder if Welles knew about Cocteau being the Grandmaster of the Priori of Scion.