Beauty and the Beast
Directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise.
US, 1991, 35mm, color, 84 min.
US, 1991, 35mm, color, 84 min.
Beauty and the Beast became the first animated feature nominated for Best Picture (it lost to The Silence of the Lambs). The film wove together campy Broadwayisms—Gaston rhymes of “decorating” and “expectorating” during his mock marriage—and self-conscious nostalgia—Mrs. Potts’ “Tale as old as time”—to make Beauty the most multi-generationally watchable of the new wave of Disney animated musicals. Along the way, they slip an extended CG sequence into the ballroom dance (elaborate camera moves are almost always CG). It’s not so much a revolution in Disney animation as some much-needed renovations—renovations the castle itself undergoes at the end.