Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 09/26/22

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Monday, September 26, 2022

Beauty and the Beast (Bill Condon, 2017)

Cast: Emma Watson, Dan Stevens, Luke Evans, Josh Gad, Kevin Kline, Hattie Morahan, Ewan McGregor, Ian McKellen, Emma Thompson, Stanley Tucci, Audra McDonald, Gugu Mbatha-Raw. Screenplay: Stephen Chbosky, based on a screenplay by Linda Woolverton. Cinematography: Tobias A. Schliessler. Production design: Sarah Greenwood. Film editing: Virginia Katz. Music: Alan Menken.

As one who thinks the Disney corporation’s decision to remake its cartoon films as live action ones is wrong-headed, I was prepared to be dismissive of Beauty and the Beast. But after saying that I think Bill Condon’s film is overlong and its production design is visually cluttered, I admit that I was won over, mostly by the casting and the reprises of the original Alan Menken-Howard Ashman songs. (I think the newer songs, with lyrics by Tim Rice, are just okay, not really so catchy and memorable.) Truth be told, I will watch almost anything that features Dan Stevens, Kevin Kline, and/or Emma Thompson, even their voices. And it’s nice to hear that their singing voices, as well as that of Emma Watson, are up to the demands. I also think that the “live” version (if you can call anything with so much CGI and motion capture live) improves on the cartoon in some regards. The characters of Gaston and LeFou are way too “cartoony,” if you will, in the cel-animated version. Luke Evans and Josh Gad do a good job of making them both funny and credible, and I love the hints of LeFou’s gayness that the new version slips in – the film didn’t even need the fleeting glimpse of LeFou dancing with another man that caused so much stupid controversy.