I swear I'm not joking when I say this, but the idea for this post came to me in a dream one night. They do say inspiration can come from anywhere, after all. XD
Last week, I reviewed Disney's cinematic masterpiece, Beauty and the Beast. As you all know, I had glowing praise for the movie, especially with its animation and how masterclass it is. So for this week's post, I'm gushing about the animation again with a new shot-by-shot analysis essay. This one is about one of my favourite scenes in Beauty and the Beast, the reveal of the Beast himself.
In this essay, I won't be talking about one particular scene though. I'll be covering at least a couple of scenes as the Beast's reveal has a lot of steps to it. It's not all done in just one scene after all.
So without further ado, let's dive in:
Our First Glimpse
Our first actual shot of the Beast occurs in the film's opening prologue. We see him shred a portrait of his human self and then the camera pans over to him as he stands in a corner with his face hidden by his hands while the rose and magic mirror are stationed on a small table beside him. In this show, we can make out the general silhouette of the beast, but we can't see him super clearly as he's shrouded in shadows and he's covering his face up. This is an effective way to introduce him as we're given a tease of his appearance, but not a full-on reveal yet. Keeping his face hidden was especially a clever bit of storyboarding as it not only adds to the sheer despair the Beast feels about his appearance, but it also gives us something big to reveal later on. The camera doesn't even linger on the Beast for very long, so we don't get a lot of time to really take in his appearance. After he curls up in that position you see in the image above, the camera then zooms straight onto the bell jar containing the enchanted rose and the magic mirror as the narrator explains their purpose.
Overall, an effective first shot that doesn't show us everything yet and builds up anticipation for the later reveal. Now let's move on to the second step of the reveal:
The Beast Meets Maurice
The next time we actually see the Beast (or at least partially see him) is when Maurice arrives at the castle after escaping from a wolf pack. When Maurice enters the castle, the Beast himself is nowhere to be seen, yet we know he's lurking around somewhere as it's his castle. This is effective at building tension as now Maurice is in the Beast's castle, we can only wonder how the Beast will react. Keep in point, we haven't seen him again since the prologue, so we still have no actual idea on the Beast's character and how he'll interact with the other characters.
As Lumiere leads Maurice to the living room to warm him by the fire with Cogsworth chasing after them, the Beast enters the frame from stage left and is once again shrouded entirely in shadow so we can only make out his basic silhouette. In this brief moment, he enters the scene, stops to survey the scene at the bottom of the stairs, and then leaves the scene as he ventures down to investigate, all while Cogsworth is objecting to Lumiere's hospitality in the background. Now he's on the scene, the viewer can only wonder what will occur next. The fact Cogsworth is objecting to all this and clearly worrying about what their master will do suggests that the Beast isn't exactly welcoming, which further builds tension for his later reveal...
For the moment, that tension is momentarily on hold as the castle staff rush to Maurice's aid and provide attentive service to him. He's given a chair in front of the fire to sit at, a coat rack gives him a blanket to cover himself up to give him more warmth and Mrs. Potts enters the scene to provide him some tea, and all while Cogsworth is objecting to this and trying to take charge of the situation. It's a nice breather moment that lets Maurice, and also the audience, have some time to settle before things get scary again in a moment. Throughout the scene, the colours are warm and bright thanks to the fireplace lighting up the warm and we get the oddity of seeing sentient furniture and kitchenware providing service for Maurice, and all while he's taking it all in with curiosity and wonder. He is a tinkerer after all, so of course this sort of thing would fascinate him. However, things very quickly take a turn for the worst when the Beast enters the scene...
The doors fling open, Lumiere turns around in shock and the fire blows out, making the whole scene suddenly darker and creepier, like we're about to enter a horror movie.
As if to further emphasize the situation, we see Mrs. Potts with a look of terror on her face and visibly shaking while Chip hides behind her in fright, only able to utter "Oh uh!" as he realizes the situation is about to get worse. Look at Mrs. Potts in this image! She is TERRIFIED right now! To see at least one character showing open fear at the presence of the Beast tells us, the audience, that things are about to get scary. We had Cogsworth showing dread at the Beast through dialogue and his desperate attempts to stop everything happening, now we see another character show dread via a reaction to what's occurring. All of this really sells the fearful presence of the Beast as he makes his entrance.
And what an entrance he makes! The Beast makes his presence known and we get our clearest shot of him thus far. To further emphasize his, well, beastly appearance, he enters the scene on all fours like an actual animal. While he's still shrouded in shadows, we can make out most of his appearance here and, for the first time in the movie, we even see his face. While the Beast is obscured by darkness mostly, the most visible parts of him are his teeth and eyes so that we can see his expressions a lot easier. They stand out considerably against his shadowed figure, which only makes him look scarier. Shrouded in shadows, monstrous looking and with eyes and teeth flashing in the darkness, he truly looks like something out of a nightmare, only for poor Maurice this is NO nightmare...
As the Beast prowls, stalking in the shadows like a tiger about to pounce on a deer, Lumiere tries to explain the situation to him, but the Beast only roars in response. I especially love how Cogsworth tries sucking up to the Beast by saying how he was against this from the start and tried to stop the situation...
...it doesn't go well.
These two moments back-to-back further tell us how bad the situation is, namely that the Beast can't be reasoned with right now. Even Cogsworth's attempt to get on his good side just gets him roared at and leaves him cowering in fear under the rug. As we can see, Maurice. Is. SCREWED!
The Beast then approaches Maurice and demands to know who he is, while also giving him no time to answer his questions, so why bother asking? Throughout the whole scene, Maurice is visibly terrified of this monstrosity in front of him to the point he can barely take his eyes off of him. We then get this moment where the Beast stands up tall, thus showing how huge he really is. As you can see here, he TOWERS over Maurice! This is our first real example of the Beast's true size as we're yet to see him compared to other characters and when he entered the scene earlier, he came in on all fours so he didn't look as large. Now we have another character sharing the scene with him, we can actually compare sizes and as we can see, he is HUGE! Seeing how big he is further exemplifies how much of a terrifying sight he is as we can see he's big enough to easily snap Maurice in two if he wanted. As if the situation couldn't get any scarier for him!
The Beast doesn't take too kindly to Maurice staring at him (and honestly, can you blame him? It's hard not to stare at something like the Beast!) and while Maurice tries to explain himself, the Beast merely says he'll "give him a place to stay". The scene concludes with the Beast picking Maurice up like he weighs nothing in his hands and taking him away to parts unknown, all while Maurice pleads with him. We only see their shadows as the Beast exits the scene with Maurice in hand and the castle staff's visible reactions to what's just occurred. This was an effective mini cliffhanger to end the scene on as now we're left wondering what's going to become of Maurice and what place to stay has he been given? As the Beast was given such a scary introduction, we're left fearing for his life as much as Maurice himself!
This scene was incredible. It built up the tension beautifully, the Beast makes a terrifying first impression and the fact we still haven't had a full-on reveal yet still adds more mystery to the guy. Throughout the scene, he's bathed in darkness so we're still yet to see him completely. That's where we get...
The Full-On Reveal
Later on in the movie, Belle finds the Beast's castle with help from Phillepe (which I was always confused about since Phillepe never went to the castle, so how did he know where it was?) and after searching through the castle, she finds her father locked away in a dungeon and looking a little worse for wear. She even comments his hands are like ice and he begins coughing as she says that. As expected from a dungeon setting, the place looks very dank, unwelcoming and murky, showcasing how Maurice's situation went from colourful and comfortable to dark and uncomfortable very quickly. At this point, the Beast hasn't appeared again yet, not even briefly, so all the audience can do is hold their breath as they wait for him to show up...
...which he does. I have to say, for a big, beastly guy, he's surprisingly stealthy. XD Then again, animals can be very stealthy when they need to, so what do I know?
He catches Belle off-guard with an effective jump-scare as he seizes her, yells "What are you doing here?!" and yanks her violently to one side, causing her to drop the flaming torch she has into a very conveniently placed puddle. I'm not even joking about the conveniently placed part, it really does feel like it's just there so the animators could have the torch go out and leave the Beast in darkness again. However, if you pause just right as I did here, you can see the Beast quite clearly in the glow of the flames just before Belle drops the torch. It's a very fleeting moment, so we're still not given a proper reveal yet.
With the flame of the torch out, Belle finds herself in the same position as the audience in where even she can't see the Beast that clearly. She can see he's there obviously, but she can't see him completely. Just like in the previous scene, the Beast is mostly shrouded in shadows with only his eyes and teeth being clearly visible. And as we see in this shot, the Beast towers over Belle just as much as he towers over Maurice as well, a reminder that now Belle's in danger with this creature on the scene.
Belle pleads for her father to be released, and the Beast only roars at her that he shouldn't have trespassed here, resulting in this extreme close-up shot. I cannot for the life of me explain why, but this extreme close-up has forever stuck in my mind and is even among the first examples I ALWAYS think of when I hear the term "extreme close-up". I don't know, there's something so striking and memorable about it, as well as intimidating considering how they've been portraying this guy as menacing and now we've got this close-up of him. It especially draws attention to the Beast's most noteworthy feature of his design, namely how he still has human eyes despite his animalistic appearance. The eyes served as a reminder of the fact this isn't a monster, this is a human transformed into one. While this isn't our first time seeing those eyes, this is easily the clearest shot of them so far as they're so close-up.
The Beast insists to Belle that there's nothing she can do to save her father. Belle doesn't give up and instead asks she be imprisoned in his place. This gives us the first time we see the Beast show an expression other than anger as he shows surprise at Belle's selflessness. Even with him in shadows, his face is as clear to read as anything. You can practically hear him thinking "She would really do that?" as he asks her about her suggestion.
We then get the final reveal itself. Belle asks the Beast to come into the light. We then get this POV shot from Belle as she, and the audience, watch the Beast comply. He steps into the light leg first and the camera pans slowly upwards so we can see the rest of his body slowly enter the light. We get a quick close-up shot of Belle as she sees the Beast for the first time...
...and then we get it. The camera pans back to the Beast as he fully steps into the light, making him visible for all of us to see. The angle of the shot is perfect here as it makes the Beast look imposing and that, like Belle, we're also looking up at him. Despite this being animation done on paper, it still beautifully sells the image that we're truly looking at a towering monster here.
Belle's reaction is spot-on by the way. The horror in her eyes is plain to see and that barely stifled gasp says a thousand words.
As a result, with the Beast revealed, he's no longer hidden in shadows from this point onwards. The next shot he appears in even shows him clearly visible now the reveal's over and there's no need to hide him anymore.
Conclusion
The Beast's reveal was expertly storyboarded and executed from beginning to end. By keeping his appearance brief in the prologue, having his first proper scene shrouded in darkness so we can't see all of him and then slowly building him up throughout the movie until the eventual reveal made for one of Disney's most impactful moments in all of cinema. The animators really played with the camera work, inventive angles and lighting in order for the reveal to pay off and it worked splendidly.
The only thing I will say is that the reveal is kind of ruined a little by these higher definition remasters of the movie we get nowadays. Back when the film was out on VHS, the picture was darker than what we see in these pictures I've shown you, so the Beast was even more obscured and thus harder to make out. Here, he's a little easier to make out, so the reveal doesn't feel quite as impactful as it did back when we'd used to watch it in our childhoods. If they kept the picture darker like in the original VHS releases, it would be better.
As is, the reveal is still well handled and every time I watch this movie, it still stands out as one of the finest scenes Disney has ever crafted. Masterclass animation at its finest...
My favourite shots of these scenes include:
The Beast walking into the living room
The Beast towering over Maurice
The extreme close-up of the Beast as he yells "Then he shouldn't have trespassed here!"
The Beast stepping into the light
Belle's reaction to the Beast's appearance
And that's it for this essay. I hope you enjoyed hearing me talk about one of Beauty and the Beast's most memorable scenes and breaking it down shot-by-shot. Which shots are your favourite in these scenes? Do let me know in the comments below.
Next week I'll be talking about Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V...and why it failed. This'll be a doozy...