BOOK REPORT

NAME:Princess Anne Arevalo

Grd/Sec:9-industry
Teacher:Mrs.Roa
SETTING

France
Things get a little funky as far as the time and place goes
in Beauty and the Beast. But, at the same time, they have a large
bearing on how the story unfolds—and might even explain a few
would-be plot holes in the bargain.
The one thing we know for sure: this is France, where the original
story was written and which has always formed the background
for the tale.
Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont penned the original fairy
tale in the 1750s, which the filmmakers took as the basic cue for
the costumes…and technology level. (Of course, they took their
share of historical liberties in order to give it a more timeless "fairy
tale" feeling.) We're left to speculate, however, on who the prince
is, exactly, and how he fits in with the royal bloodline of France.
His is a pretty self-contained kingdom, after all, and we never see
any references to the people beyond the castle, the woods, and
the nearby town. If he were more important, more people would
notice when he turned into a mutant warthog, so we can probably
assume that his kingdom is actually a very small part of France.
Or, you know, made up.
Why is that such a big deal? Disney clearly wants to keep the
official roots of the story intact while continuing to give it a frothy
"once upon a time" shine. So, while it's set in France and most of
the main characters have French names, the story itself is more
akin to other Disney films set in fictional kingdoms that have no
political reality. It makes it a more universal story.
Assuming talking teapots are universal.
Maurice

Maurice is the village inventor and Belle's father. However, most of the
villagers think he is insane for crafting devices believed ridiculous and
impossible to construct in reality.
During the beginning of the movie, he is working on a machine that
automatically chops up firewood. Once it is successfully working, he leaves
for the County Fair to display his invention. However, he is unable to make
it to the fair due to getting lost in the woods. After going down a path that
results in the loss of his horse and cart, and being attacked and nearly
killed by a pack of rabid wolves, he winds up at the gate of a dark castle.
When he enters the castle to stay for the night, he ends up being locked up
by the Beast, the castle's master.
Belle learns of what happened and goes to the castle, attempting to release
her father. She then tries to convince the Beast to release him from the
castle. She succeeds in convincing the Beast to release him, under the
condition that she is to take her father's place, to Maurice's protests.
Maurice is forcibly taken back to the village.
Upon returning to the village, Maurice tries to seek the villagers' help in
trying to rescue Belle, but they don't believe him, and they consequently
throw him out of the tavern.
Determined to not give up on Belle, he decides to return to the castle alone.
However, it doesn't take long before he succumbs to an unknown illness
due to the cold weather. Luckily, Belle discovers that her father is in trouble
via the Beast's Magic Mirror and is released by the Beast so she can save
him. Shortly after arriving back home, Le Fou has alarmed the villagers of
their return. Shortly thereafter, Monsieur D'Arque, the keeper of the Maison
de Lunes Insane Asylum, and the other villagers come to take Maurice to
the insane asylum in an intricate plan to blackmail Belle into
marrying Gaston. Belle reveals that Maurice's rants are true and that the
Beast does exist. Both she and Maurice are locked up by Gaston in the
cellar, to stop them from interfering with Gaston's goal to kill the
Beast. Chip has managed to stow away in Belle's satchel and uses the
automated firewood cutter to destroy the door to the cellar. Maurice and
Belle leave for the castle to stop Gaston from killing the Beast. He is last
seen in the ballroom standing by Mrs. Potts as he happily watches Belle
and the Beast (who is now transformed back into a handsome prince)
dance while he laughs at Chip's question to his mother whether he still has
to 'stay in the cupboard'.
In the 2017 live-action remake, Maurice is played by Kevin Kline. He
remains as an inventor, but makes music boxes to help Belle see the world
from the comfort of home in the village of Villeneuve. He fled Paris and
settled in the provinces with Belle when she was still a baby to protect the
both of them from a plague that took the life of Belle's mother and
Maurice's wife. True to the original story, Maurice is imprisoned by the
Beast for taking a rose from his garden instead of being caught trespassing
in the castle. Maurice returns to Villeneuve to find help, but only Gaston
and LeFou are willing to do so. However, Gaston only wanted to help in
order to get Maurice's blessing for his marriage to Belle. Knowing that Belle
has no interest in marrying Gaston, Maurice refuses her hand, prompting
Gaston to leave him to die at the hands of the wolves. The Enchantress,
disguised as a villager named Agathe, rescues him and takes him back to
Villeneuve. Upon his return, Maurice attempts to have Gaston arrested for
attempted murder, but Gaston in turn declares him insane and has him
committed to an insane asylum. Belle arrives back in time to vindicate
Maurice, but both are locked in the asylum wagon while the whole village
goes to kill the Beast. After Maurice and Belle make amends regarding
Belle now understanding why Maurice was so overly protective of her,
thanks to the Beast, Maurice uses his inventor skills to pick the lock on the
wagon, allowing Belle to take Phillipe back to the Beast's castle while
Maurice remains behind with the dumbfounded Monsieur D'Arque. At the
end of the movie, Maurice is seen painting the ballroom dance as everyone
celebrates.
He only makes a cameo in Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted
Christmas as one of the people listening to the story Mrs. Potts is telling,
and makes his debut appearance in the Kingdom Hearts series in Kingdom
Hearts χ.
 PLOT
Summaries
 Disney's animated classic takes on a new form, with a widened
mythology and an all-star cast. A young prince, imprisoned in the form
of a beast, can be freed only by true love. What may be his only
opportunity arrives when he meets Belle, the only human girl to ever
visit the castle since it was enchanted.
As punishment for his actions, a young prince is transformed into a
monstrous beast by a mysterious enchantress. Only condition is if he
can learn to love someone and earn their love in return, the curse will
be lifted. Enter young bookworm Belle, who stumbles upon the castle
and is taken prisoner by the Beast while rescuing her father. With help
from the Beast's servants, Belle comes to appreciate and love the
Beast all while evading a stalking hunter who wants to marry her.

—Blazer346

 A cursed prince meets a young village girl and over time they fall in
love. Belle the village girl sees the beauty within the beast and
becomes not only his friend but his only companion in his dark and
lonely castle. If Belle and the beast don't fall in love before the last
petal falls off an enchanted rose given to the beast, the beast must
remain a beast forever and the enchanted servants will become
antiques.

—niaroberts

 Cursed to be a beast until a beautiful maiden loves him, a prince lies

under a coat of thick, brown fur in his lonely castle with only his
enchanted servants to look after him and keep him company. When a
young village girl named Belle comes in search of her imprisoned
father, the beast takes her in his place. Over time Belle sees beyond
the furry coat and she befriends him. The two spend long days
together in the snow and the sun and gradually they fall in love. Belle
must love the beast before the last petal falls, but when it falls she
must find a way to get to the beast before it's too late.....
CONCFLICT

Beauty agrees to take her father's place as

the Beast's prisoner, and so she comes to
live with him and must face
his nightly proposals of marriage.
The central conflict is, thus, Beauty's lack
of love for the Beast (who, unbeknownst to
Beauty, can only break the curse on his
family's lineage by finding true love).
MOTIVE

Beauty and the Beast Themes

Love
Beauty and the Beast is generally considered one of the most romantic movies of all time, so
yeah, l'amour is front and center. Belle and the Beast follow the classic arc of hating each other
so mu...

Appearances

Love is not about appearances in this movie. In fact, appearances can be very deceiving. That
handsome hero type is actually a supreme jerk. The monster actually has a heart of gold. Even
Belle, be...

Community

Funny thing about Beauty and the Beast: it doesn't have a lot of faith in community, at least the
traditional kind. Disney movies have always tended to stress the value of community and the
way tig...

Sacrifice

Belle starts off her adventure by sacrificing her freedom to save her father. It's second nature to
her, which means that she already understands the nature of love. The Beast has to learn how
to d...

Identity

The last time you had an identity crisis, it was probably something along the lines of "I'm not as
generous/good-looking/amusing/klutzy as I thought I was." In this film, it's more of an "I was a
h...

Exile -Exile, or being forced to leave your home, can be physical or emotional. The Beast lives
completely apart from civilization: stuck in his castle and left to use his magic mirror to look in
on the r...
 POINT OF VIEW


Third-Person Omniscient
Beauty and the Beast doesn't play a lot of games with its narrative technique.
Third-person omniscient allows it to move around at will, showing us whatever
we need to see and letting the story unfold in a rational, linear fashion so that it
doesn't lose us. This is a family film, after all, and the more straightforward you
can keep the narrative, the easier you'll hold the attention of the little guys.
The big exception—and it's not all that big in the grand scheme of things—comes
in the opening. A voice-over narrator (David Ogden Stiers, who's also the voice
of Cogsworth) quickly gets us up to speed on how the Beast got to be the way he
is and clues us in to the stakes involved in the story we're about to see. The
narrator never returns, and except for the stained-glass window shot at the end,
there's no real shout-out to it in any other part of the film. It's simply an expedient
way to tell us what we need to know before the story properly starts.
That's not normally something you do, delivering a whole lot of story information
in such a big, ungainly mess. Writers call it "telling, not showing." If you're telling
a good story, you want to stay away from just shoving information at the
audience and instead let it unfold naturally and subtly. In most cases, when you
see something like that in a movie, the writer has either given up or just doesn't
have time to tell us that part of the story properly.
The backstory in Beauty and the Beast, however, might get in the way of the
main story, which involves how Belle came to be at the castle and what she did
to break the curse. It would slow things down since we're basically all waiting for
the romance to start. Showing us the Beast as a snotty little kid who gets cursed
would just delay what we all came here to see.
So, we get the short version, delivered gently but expediently and then set aside
in favor of a "show, don't tell" format that writers tend to approve of. The idea of
using stained-glass windows to convey the bullet points is a smart one. It gives
the story a little visual flourish while staying distinctive from the rest of the film.
That's how you turn a potential narrative shortcoming into an asset and what
separates a merely good film from a genuine classic like this one.
 MOOD

I put this mood theme together

over the past few days... I tried to
make it as Belle/Belle & Beast
centered as possible, however Chip
tended to sneak into the frames a
bit XD. I would appreciate credit if
used, because mood themes are a
little tedious to make.
THEME
Beauty and the Beast is generally considered one of
the most romantic movies of all time, so
yeah, l'amour is front and center. Belle and the
Beast follow the classic arc of hating each other so
much, it must be love. But, seriously: try to stop the
waterworks when Belle whispers those three little
words over his dying body at the end.
Beauty and the Beast has the right idea about love,
too. Belle is beloved not because she's beautiful but
because she's gentle and kind. The Beast is a little
slower on the uptake, but he gets there, too, making
sure he earns her affection by the time that last rose
petal falls.
But, there's more than just romantic love here.
There's familial love, too. Belle and her father are
devoted to each other, to the point where she
actually trades places with him as prisoner in the
Beast's Chateau de Creepy. The enchanted
knickknacks also show a lot of affection for each
other and come to each other's rescue in the big
fight. Love comes in many different forms, the story
tells us, but it's always beautiful…even when it
involves a clock saving a candelabra from certain
doom.