Podcasting Them Softly

Emma Watson, Dan Stevens, Luke Evans, Josh Gad, Kevin Kline. Directed by Bill Condon. Rated PG. 129 minutes. 2017.

The 1991 animated masterpiece, a Disney production that was the first of its kind to be nominated for Best Motion Picture at the Academy Awards, receives a live-action reimagining with Beauty and the Beast, which spends a lot of time reminding us of its originator and ends up doing it too well. There have been some cosmetic tweaks in the storytelling, some of them appreciated and others mostly innocuous, but one spends the duration wondering what the point to the whole enterprise is. It’s not a cynical thought, either, or at least it isn’t once one moves past the question to look at the creation that sparks it. Director Bill Condon and screenwriters Stephen Chbosky and Evan Spiliotopoulos are so enamored with the earlier feature that they’ve gone and essentially created a facsimile of the thing. Comparisons, pesky as they can be, are impossible to avoid in this case.

The story pretty much remains the same. The Beast (Dan Stevens, in a great performance of immense sadness and reluctant compassion) still becomes one after scoffing at the ragged woman who was actually an enchantress, although we receive some appreciated context into the prince he was before the curse was cast. The tragedy of the Beast, of course, is that he was less desirable as a prince than as a misunderstood brute, and this film does a solid job of capturing that sad truth about his character. Belle (Emma Watson), meanwhile, is still a farm girl and an enigma to townfolk who still think it unwise that a girl be a bookworm. She is still sought by Gaston (Luke Evans), the self-obsessed lout who wants her as his bride whatever the cost (Speaking of Gaston, he is still shadowed by LeFou, played by Josh Gad, who looks upon his friend with – let’s say – a little more fawning admiration than in the animated feature), and her father Maurice (Kevin Kline, boundlessly wonderful) is still considered the village madman.

During a horse ride, Maurice still stumbles upon the Beast’s castle, at which he is stunned to discover moving and speaking dishes, furniture, and decor. Trapped by the Beast in a holding cell, Maurice is still found by a frantic Belle, who offers herself up as a tribute for imprisonment in the place of her father. She is treated gruffly by the Beast but kindly by the animated inanimate objects that populate the castle. The candelabra Lumiere (Ewan McGregor) and the carriage clock Cogsworth (Ian McKellen) are still the comic relief, the teapot Mrs. Potts (Emma Thompson) and her teacup Chip (Nathan Mack) are still sources of sneaky wisdom, and the wardrobe Madame Garderobe (Audra McDonald), the piano Cadenza (Stanley Tucci), and the feather duster Plumette (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) are still pretty much background decoration. The designs of these characters are clever in the way the physiological features develop naturally from the designs of the objects, but the realism is also odd and slightly irksome in execution.

The other design elements, from the magnificent castle to the seamless visual effects to the emotive motion capture work on the Beast’s profile, are stunning to behold, but they tend to outshine everything else here. The bevy of old songs feel, with the exception of the title theme, obligatory (Lumiere’s dinner welcome of “Be Our Guest” falls especially flat as it becomes a lot of random visual noise with an orchestral arrangement that overpowers the lyrics), and the handful of new songs are simply interruptions that say what’s already been said. Unfortunately, this Beauty and the Beast only emulates the pleasures of its animated counterpart, bloating much of a simple story beyond the two-hour mark and removing much of the passion from the production. It’s a gorgeous but mechanical whisper of its true potential, never as before and rarely a surprise.

Before I delve into Bill Condon’s effervescent and joyous Beauty and the Beast, there’s a minor confession that needs to be laid bare:  I hadn’t watched the 1991 animated classic prior to seeing the live-action version.  As it turns out, this situation worked out perfectly for it allowed the story and the musical numbers to unfold naturally for me.  Condon’s live-action version is directly based on the 1991 story, itself a revival of the French classic fairy tale, La Belle et la Bête by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont.

Full of lively characters, Condon’s interpretation of this classic is part Moulin Rouge, part The Sound of Music where a flair for color and quick camera transitions to the tune of upbeat musical numbers melds with modern technical advancements showing depth and scale.  This version of Beast has a humanity and vividness about it where appearances are not everything they seem.

Despite the draw-dropping images, the story is relatively untouched from the 1991 version, which is a problem.  The one-dimensional story doesn’t truly convey the consequences of the Beast’s vanity or of Belle’s carefree attitudes.  Those choices are left to the interpretation of the actors.  Dan Stevens is the highlight while Emma Watson felt too proper for someone who should have been worldlier, though Stevens compliments her grace and style.

Dan Stevens had the unenviable task of acting twice; once for the cameras with Emma Watson and the other actors, and a second time for the motion capture systems to be computer animated as the actual Beast.  The results shine when you see the Beast on the screen, there is a much wider range of motion and emotion that was not present in the animated version.  The production went to great lengths to build real sets and what was a signature moment in the animated version, is once again so.  Cinematographer Tobias Schliessler manages to capture the epic stature that Condon intended, but the work also feels staged.

Screenwriters Stephen Chbosky and Evan Spiliotopoulos do tap in to some elements which were only alluded to in 1991.  The most obvious difference is LeFou’s flamboyance, the first openly gay character in a Disney movie, and his adoration for Gaston, which has upset some audiences and theaters.  Of course, Josh Gad and Luke Evans play off the relationship very effectively, a compliment to Condon’s steady direction.  The dynamics of Belle and the Beast’s relationship has changed for the better giving Lumière (Ewan McGregor), Cogsworth (Ian McKellen), Mrs. Potts (Emma Thompson) and Chip (newcomer Nathan Mack), Madame Garderobe (Audra McDonald), and Maestro Cadenza (Stanley Tucci) much more to do.  Each of the respective voice talents shines through and to see their human forms at the end was pure joy.  Maurice as a character has been slightly altered, giving Kevin Kline the opportunity to show his range, his child-like qualities well-suited to the character especially when he discovers that Belle has learned the truth about her mother; one of the few expanded story elements that works.

Alan Menkin returns to the work that he started in 1991 and succeeds brilliantly here, bringing on additional songs created for the Broadway musical.  Emma Thompson performs a beautiful rendition of ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ originally performed by Angela Lansbury.

Bill Condon brought Disney’s classic to life with characters who leap off the screen, with touches to please most modern audiences.  Despite the advancements in technology, the story didn’t quite follow the same path, remaining one-dimensional.

Beauty and the Beast is Recommended.

 

Blood of bright red flows throughout the frames of Rod Hardy’s sublime and seemingly undervalued THIRST. An imperfect but no less enthralling gem excavated from the tail end of the 70s, this is the kind of film that oozes with all sorts of salaciously surreal potential. Midnight madness is no stranger to twisty tales of vampirism, but few come so dangerously close to evoking the quality of the feverish day-dream of a deeply disturbed flower child (one with a penchant for paranoid conspiracy and aesthetic occultism) and that’s barely penetrating the surface.

If the director’s name is at all familiar, it might be because Hardy was behind the Daniel Radcliffe vehicle DECEMBER BOYS (2007); quite an unexpected change of pace from his acid-tinged debut, which is far more interested in entertaining elements of science fiction, psychedelia, and even the legend of Elizabeth Bathory than it is in conventional empathic rumination.

 

The infamous Blood Countess provides a great deal of essential framing for the story, which concerns the kidnapping of Australian housewife Kate Davis (Chantal Cantouri) by a shady organization which refers to itself as “The Brotherhood” who later inform the distraught heroine that she is in fact a descendent of Bathory and that she is to be kept in the confines of their compound in order to undergo a series of mysterious though revealing medical experiments.

Roughly the first half of the film is soaked in pervasive ambience and ambiguity, and for better or worse, we feel about as lost as Kate. Those behind the operation seem to be harvesting the blood of their “patients” and it would also appear that Kate is unique for her hereditary ties. One of the professionals on site, Dr. Fraser (the ever-reliable David Hemmings), takes a shine to her and even makes a commendable effort to subvert the character’s increasingly grim fate.

Then, the illusion is shattered and the screaming starts; with the ingestion of psychoactive substance comes a positively remarkable phantasmagoria that segues into a somewhat underwhelming conclusion that almost seems to actively acknowledge that what came before was a uniquely hard act to follow. It is, along with the silly glowing red eye effect applied to the vamps as they make their immediate transitions, one of the only real blind spots here but it’s a biggie. It might be difficult to imagine, with a premise as unabashedly outlandish as this, that the lackluster home stretch would be borderline detrimental to its lasting influence, but here we are.

On a whole, however, this is just exquisite. The widescreen compositions are absolutely divine, just jam-packed with essential information, and some would argue the oddball ideas on display here are not quite worthy of their grandeur; but it all made sense when an IMDB search informed me that Vincent Monton had also lensed the excellent LONG WEEKEND just a year prior. Brian May, best known for his work on the first two installments in George Miller’s MAD MAX Trilogy, also provides an alternatively elegant and haunting musical accompaniment to the madness which unfolds on-screen. It’s a perfectly perverse and meticulously crafted spectacle, and one which knows all too well that not every trip – and this is certainly a memorable one – is thoroughly pleasant.

Sure, this could just as easily be chocked up to drug-addled nonsense as it could be to an effective late night entertainment but one man’s bullshit is another man’s benefit. THIRST dares to descend into the rabbit hole and emerges with an intriguing cinematic brew; and if it’s one that doesn’t entirely work, because admittedly mileage may vary among viewers, it’s at the very least an inspiring effort that does well to provide a substantial amount of audio-visual fodder for those who simply, and constantly, crave the wild side of celluloid. Nothing, and nowhere, is safe from the liquid red; not the chicken drumsticks at the picnic, not the bottle of milk delivered to your doorstep, and absolutely not the suburban shower. The nightmare certainly seems never-ending, but it remains a powerful prospect. Sometimes you gotta go get mad, and it’s films like this which just make it all the easier.