The story behind the making of the fairy tale classic, Disney’s thirtieth animated feature.
By Sheldon Teitelbaum
Producer Don (WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT?, TUMMY TROUBLE) Hahn calls it “the last of the red hot fairy tales.” It is certainly one of the few vestiges of classic folklore yet unmined by Disney. Alas, it was only a matter of time before the Mouse sunk his teeth into it—Disney has pledged to release a new animated feature a year. And so, some four years ago, screenwriter Linda Wolverton turned in her adaptation of the well-known French fable, Beauty and the Beast, and the familiar myth-chomping gears began to turn.
The result, which opened nationwide November 22, is Disney's 30th animated feature to date—its fourth in as many years—and a musical treat that ought to appeal equally to children and the adults dutifully charged with schlepping them into their local Cineplex Odeon. More akin to last year’s THE LITTLE MERMAID than the 1946 Jean Cocteau film, LA BELLE ET LA BETE, Disney’s version is nevertheless very much a beast of its own. The new movie, directed by Disney story department veterans Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, stands apart from its predecessor in several areas. Key among them is that Disney’s BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, with the help of Oscar-winning song writers Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, strives for a more expansive integration of music than they accomplished in their Oscar-winning THE LITTLE MERMAID. Whereas the music in MERMAID strived for a pop lilt, the songs in BEAUTY AND THE BEAST have a more sweeping narrative quality to them, suggestive of operetta or the French music hall tradition.
Among the sure-fire hits in store, an hilarious barroom waltz with a brawling quality sung by Le Fou (the Idiot) and his fellow French rednecks in tribute to their hero, the extravagantly self-infatuated, hirsute and wildly hormonal villain Gaston; a rousing French music hall number delivered by a Maurice Chevalier-like candle with the voice of Jerry Orbach; a teapot voiced-over by Angela Lansbury (shades of Sweeney Todd); a mantle clock with the voice of David Ogden Stiers; and a dining room full of dishes and cooking utensils; and the climactic “Mob Song,” the kind of thing one might have expected had YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN beena musical.
Another difference is that the protagonist, Belle, is more assertive than previous Disney heroes, including THE LIT- TLE MERMAID’s Ariel. With the dulcet voice of Paige O'Hara, she is a bright, practical and loving young woman who falls under the spell— however reluctantly at first— of the beast, a tormented and lonely soul trapped in the body of amonster. To achieve salvation, the beast must learn to love, something he was incapable of doing as a prince.
“It is definitely our own version,” said Hahn, who signed onto the project in 1988, after serving as associate producer on WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT? “It resembles very little of the other versions you've ever seen. The story exists in many cultures—there’s the ‘Frog Prince,’ for instance, and Phantom of the Opera. Each generation tells its own version.”
For Disney, however, the question of who would tell this version proved critical, Originally, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST was assigned, in late 1989, to British animators Richard Purdom and his wife. Purdom, a protege of Canadian animator Richard Williams, has an animation company in London. But according to Hahn, the Purdoms were not keen on doing a musical, and, in fact, anticipated a far darker film than suited Disney’s sunny imprimatur.
“His version was lovely,” said Hahn, “but out of the fanciful musical fantasy mode we were looking for at that time. He was going in another direction—he wanted to make a classic fairy tale, as we did. But he had a perspective on it that wasn’t ringing true to our direction. But the more we decided to musicalize it, the less interested he became in the project. We ultimately decided it was better to go our separate ways.
“THE LITTLE MERMAID had just come out,” recalled Hahn, “and we approached Alan [Menken] and Howard [Ashman], reworking the outline with a musical in mind. In early 90 we spent a lot of time in Fishkill, New York, at the Residents Inn, working on the songs. The script came first— we didn't decide ona lot of song moments until the script had been completed. Then Howard would say, ‘Oh look, hereis a chunk of movie where Gaston blackmails Belle, throws her and her father in the basement, and they go to lynch the beast—we could make ita mob song.” Or, ‘Here's where Belle sings about what she wants in life—she dreams aboutad venture.”
“He would take these emotional turning points in the story and turn them into song moments. Gaston's is one of the earliest. We always knew this villain could have this terrific song with his cronies about how great he is.”
Hahn also signed on Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale as directors. Though new to directing features, the duo had directed “Cranium Command” for Disney's Epcot Center. Both were veterans of Disney's story department, and had worked as storyboard artists and in other capacities on the first ROGER RABBIT cartoon, on THE LITTLE MERMAID and THE GREAT MOUSE DETECTIVE.
“It was an opportunity to get some fresh blood and directing talent and a new spin on the story,” said Hahn. “The day after we found out the Purdoms were going to leave we got them on a plane and said there might be an opportunity to direct.
“We tried to tell the story from the perspective of the beast. He's the guy trapped ina monkey suit; he’s the guy witha problem, who spends the whole movie trying to redeem himself. The moral, of course, is that beauty is only skin deep— don't judge a book from its cover,”
Animation for BEAUTY AND THE BEAST took a little over a year to complete, with some 500 artists, musicians and others working on the project in all. Hahn noted that his staff tried out some new animation methods in the process, including the use of moving backgrounds. “It’s as though you actually built a set and flew the camera around to create a moving environment, We did this with computer graphics techniques, buildinga set digitally and flying a camera around. We also used extensive tone mattes—the renderings yousawin ROGER RABBIT. Instead ofa flat, pasted-on cartoon, they all have a dark side and a light side. Those are tone mattes that create dimensional characters.”
Hahn said that in making BEAUTY AND THEBEAST, he was not out to replicate the tone or tenor of THE LITTLE MERMAID. “Making it into a musical was related to the success of MERMAID,” he acknowledged. “That was a turning point, perhaps. But we tried to develop something that wasn't justa MERMAID wannabe; something that could stand on its own. The lastthing I wanted to do as a producer was make a clone of MERMAID. Creatively, it was important for us, as artists, to be able to stretch and do something a little different.”
The happy couple in Disney's latest cartoon feature, based on the oft-filmed French fable.
Left: The Beast's palace, the rich detailed look of Disney's Golden Age. Right: The Beast’s enchanted housewares, characters added to burst into song and flesh-out the tale.
Directors Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, getting in the horror mood of the tale.
Disney producer Don Hahn.