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Beauty and the Beast (1946)
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Movie Review by Ezra
February 16th, 2007
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Beauty and the Beast has much in common with Citizen Kane, both thematically and visually. The Beast is not unlike Charles Foster Kane in that they are both powerful men who live in isolation, in strange palaces of their own design. Both estates have numerous beautiful statues and ornamentation, though the Beast's are strangely alive. Of course, Kane is a realistic story told in a somewhat surrealistic style, while Beauty and the Beast is pure fantasy, but with an important theme that has applications in real life. This theme is where the films diverge because, while love saves the Beast from his tragic fate, it is this same love that Kane can never have. Indeed, when his second wife, Suzan Alexander, leaves him, he is unable to utter the one phrase that might make her stay; instead of "I love you," he says, "You can't do this to me." This is the basic difference between Kane and the Beast: while the Beast cares only for Beauty, Kane cares only for himself.
Visually, the most striking similarity between the two films is the makeup work. The Beast's costume and makeup, which took several hours a day to apply and remove, are just as utterly believable as the gradual aging of Charles Foster Kane throughout the film. Also, the scenes inside the Beast's palace have the same low-key lighting as much of Citizen Kane, and Kane himself becomes like a beast when he trashes Suzan's room after she leaves him.
Both Cocteau and Welles seem to have a fascination with mirrors that is shared by many other great filmmakers. In Beauty and the Beast, Beauty is able to travel from the Beast's palace to her own home and back again simply by wishing it while holding a magical mirror given her by the Beast, and one of the most beautiful shots in Citizen Kane is that of Kane walking by a series of mirrors which create multiple reflections of him that seem to stretch on into infinity.
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