MovieChat Forums > La Belle et la Bête (1947) Discussion > question about the beast*spoilers*

question about the beastspoilers

posted 18 years ago by little_miss_mo
6 replies | jump to latest

what was the significance of the beast looking like avenant?

i remember thinking it was strange when the beast asked belle if anyone had ever proposed to her before and she told him yes, avenant did and he freaked out like he knew the guy. i mean maybe he just freaked out because someone else loved her or what but it definitely seemed weird, like he knew him somehow.

and then later on when he turns into a handsome prince... that looks just like avenant, so much so that they TALK about it... i just don't get it.

ALSO, remember how he said all of his treasures were in the temple... why didn't he go back and get them before he left?

great movie but a few things i didn't get. maybe i just wasn't reading the subtitles close enough. hopefully someone can shed some light =).

[–] dreadpirate2 18 years ago

Well first off, the actor who played the Beast/Avenant/the Prince was Cocteau's lover. So a wee bit of nepotism in the casting makes sense. And anyway, I think that he's very good at playing all three roles, and it definitely adds a layer or two of symbolism. A key line in the movie is that love can turn a beast into a man, or a man into a beast.

Also, Belle was in love with Avenant. She tells the Prince this at the end.

I can't say more than that, because I haven't seen the movie in a year, and I've only seen it a handful of times total (I don't want to diminish its charm by watching it too often).

I hope that helps somewhat.

I did accidentally kill her father when I went to pick her up for the first date. AWKWARD!

[–] little_miss_mo 18 years ago

ahh i see now, that makes sense. thanks so much for your help!

[–] dreadpirate2 18 years ago

Hooray! Glad I could help :)

I did accidentally kill her father when I went to pick her up for the first date. AWKWARD!

[–] rooprect 18 years ago

Thanks for that info about the actor (I learned something new!). Still, I think there's a lot more to it than nepotism in Cocteau's decision to have him play both the handsome prince & Avenant.

Like pinkmoe said, there's that memorable scene where the Beast freaks out at the mention of Avenant's name. It was specifically the name that triggered him. I dunno... maybe it's just the fact that "avenant" means "handsome" in French, and that was particularly wounding to the Beast. But I think there's more to it than that. It's as if the Beast had been reminded of some dark secret.

Also, the simultaneous transformation (Avenant -> Beast / Beast -> Avenant) was too precise to be meaningless. Cocteau designed it with some particular point in mind.

And lastly, the entire ending scene (where they overtly talk about the similarities between the handome prince & Avenant) is done with a sly look on Belle's face. Watch it again if you don't know what I'm talking about. It's as if she's privy to an inside joke that we're supposed to figure out.

Hmmm. I don't have any theories yet, but I'll be thinking about this one for a while.

[–] arsantiqua 18 years ago

I think of it as the essentially expressionistic mode of fairy tales. What is the story of Beauty and the Beast? It begins with a man who promises one of his daughters to a beast for sacrifice. From the mind of a young and innocent this might seem like the fate of someone who has been offered up as a wife. At first he seems and acts like nothing more than a beast. He coerced her father into the sacrifice and so forth. As she comes to know him he becomes less of a beast until, at the moment of her declaration of love (Her calls to him become "my beast:), becomes a hansome prince.
Now let's look at Avenant. On the one hand he loves Belle. He and Ludovic have nothing but scorn for the two sisters. He is well liked. Even stiking out at Ludovic doesn't banish him from their company. But he is a scoundrel and a rogue and unfit for Belle. Belle describes the Beast as someone who seems course at first, but has deep qualities beneath. The horrors that the Beast commits are tortuous to him and as Belle begins to recognise this she begins to understand her love for him. His love for her literally transforms him from the Beast to the Prince, seen as the double, Avenant acting as a beast is transformed to the beast and dies. In other words the beastly portion of Avenant, the Thief, dies. The Prince says that love transformed him, but it transforms the rogue to a prince. When Belle confesses that she did love Avenant she recognizes on some level that she finally got him.

Just my 2 cents

[–] dreadpirate2 18 years ago

"I think of it as the essentially expressionistic mode of fairy tales." I happen to agree with this explanation. While I have also noticed what rooprect observed, I don't think that they necessarily mean that Cocteau had a particular meaning in mind, and I don't think that there's a certain meaning that the audience is supposed to pick up on. If there is, it's not clearly conveyed. I do know that the audience is supposed to feel disappointed by the Beast's transformation (Cocteau has written about this, and it's apparent in the movie). I think that having the same actor play all three roles adds to this sense that Belle suffers a terrible loss when the Beast symbolically dies and is replaced by the Prince.

I did accidentally kill her father when I went to pick her up for the first date. AWKWARD!