Live-Action Fairy Tales: Beauty and the Beast

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Albert Einstein: "If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales."

Fairy tales, literary nonsense, tall tales...whatever you want to call them.  I'm a sucker for a wonderfully told, beautifully presented one.  Especially when they come in live-action form.  There's something...magical when it's done right.  Some of these are taken right from the pages of a book, some are new takes on old tales.  If you get surprised by a title, stop and think about it for a second.  It'll make sense. :)  This time, let's see what kind of Beasts we've got.
As usual, did I leave off your favorite?  Let me know in the comments below!

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Beauty & the Beast

People still argue over when or where this tale originated.  The oldest written version of this tale is credited to Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve.  The most common version to be retold, however, is written by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont.  She took Miss Barbot's story and shortened it, rewrote it and published it under her own name.  No matter where it came from, this is by far my very favorite fairy tale.

A kind, old man asks his three daughters what they'd like him to bring back from his journey.  The youngest wants a rose and when he sees a beautiful one, he goes to take it, not knowing that it is from the Beast's garden.  The Beast decides to hold the man captive for his theft until his gentle daughter arrives and agrees to take his place.  I feel like maybe you know the rest?



What most consider to be 'the original classic.'  It is a French fantasy/romance that stays very true to the fairy tale.



This Czech film went the horror route.  It's described as slightly surrealistic and absolutely eerie.  This version is notable as making its Beast a winged bird-creature.



This Italian drama turns the fairy tale upside down by making a young soldier the beauty and an 'unattractive and mad' resident of the house our beast.



This is an American/Israeli musical.  It's a close adaptation that tells the same type of story as another French adaptation below.  It's part of the Canon Movie Tales series.



A modernized adaptation which places our beauty (Linda Hamilton from the original Terminator movies) as an Assistant DA in New York City.  Her beast (Ron Perlman from Hellboy) is a lion-man that lives underground.  So....yeah.



He lives alone in a castle, at first she's disgusted and then devoted...tell me this has never occurred to you before.  It doesn't share every bit of the original story (her mom, though...), but it has enough similarities to be here.


Rigoletto (1993)

This is a contemporary musical that features an abrasive, disfigured man and an adolescent girl who goes to work for him.



An American comedy in which beauty is played by The Nanny and the beast is a dictator played by Timothy Dalton.


No Such Thing (2001)

A modern-day fantasy adaptation starring the quirky Sarah Polley.  I would describe this movie as desperate and charming.  A gem.



Set during the time of Vikings, this is a (very) loose adaptation in which beauty is a warrior princess and the beast is a cursed...beast.  It's one of those B-movies that wasn't completely dreadful.  It has its moments and all that.


Penelope (2006)

This modern gender-swap version of my favorite fairy tale is absolutely enchanting!  I'll recommend this to anyone.  It's delightful and charming and a joy to watch.


Beastly (2011)

A contemporary version in which all of the characters (except Neil Patrick Harris-you sly dog, you) go to high school together.  Watch it if you like things like Beautiful Creatures & Twilight.



Another present-day take which is also kind of a remake of that Linda Hamilton/Ron Perlman show from the 80s (above).



This movie is part of a German/Austrian film series called Fairytale Pearls.



This beautiful French-German adaptation follows the story closely and is a joy to watch.  If you can do movies with subtitles, I highly recommend it.  This is what I'm going to compare the new Disney movie to.



Ah, Disney.  Beauty and the Beast has gotten it's Maleficent treatment and I am impressed! It had all of the moments I hoped for and then some.  Thank you Disney, for giving this fangirl exactly what she wanted-you could not have cast this film better!!

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Comments

  1. UnknownMarch 8, 2017 at 12:44 AM

    Okay, so beastly was terrible... I'm sorry. I couldn't get through it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Nerdy WerewolfMarch 11, 2017 at 7:57 AM

      You're allowed. It's a genre flick more than a Beauty and the Beast tale, anyway. Unfortunately, I can't lie and say I hated it...lol.

      Delete

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