Still confused from the Lost finale a few weeks ago? Let me recount a story from the writer’s room, offered without comment. And just to make sure that there are some loose ends plot wise, I’m not going to tell you where I heard this story and leave it up to you to decide if I’m name-dropping, making it up for my benefit, or just have excellent skills with the internets.
“Break” is writer’s room jargon for figuring out the plot points, or beats, in an episode. Usually this takes a couple weeks. “The Constant,” one of the well-received episodes from Lost, took more than twice as long.
What happened was they started to ask questions. Like, if Desmond’s consciousness is jumping around in time, then doesn’t he inevitably change the past? Or were those always moments when his consciousness from the future had occupied his body in the past? But if that’s the case, why doesn’t he remember? Is he traveling to a different timeline? Is he creating a different timeline? And on and on like that.
Eventually couple other writers in the room said “Quit it already. Look, we know what The Constant is — it’s a love story between Desmond and Penny. The consciousness travel stuff is killing us just like it’s killing Desmond, and the only way out is to remember that it’s a love story and trust the emotional arc.”
And that’s what they did.
I mention all of this because the reason I was scared of Jean Cocteau’s movies is because I’m familiar with some of his plays, and they do a lot more toying with images and idea than they do tell emotionally compelling stories. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for mad ideas and beauty for the sake of beauty, but in the plays of Jean Cocteau it never quite worked for me.
So I was kind of apprehensive about this week’s case in point: 1946’s Beauty and the Beast.
As it turns out, Beauty and the Beast is Jean Cocteau’s attempt to bring his poetic ideas to a large popular audience. He wanted to create a particularly French and particularly poetic form of filmmaking, and he wanted to bring it to the people. In order to do that he had to tell a story with clearly drawn characters who have a strong emotional arc. He did that with such elegant craft that he could embed his poetry into the story itself – there for anyone to see, but not necessary to have a full emotional experience while watching the movie.
In order to create the poetically charged world of the Beast’s castle, Cocteau and his designers developed a whole new vocabulary of cinematic effects in order to create the Beast’s magical castle. The effects create a world that feels both real and magical in the most wonderful way.
I’ve always adored what happens when really brilliant artistic minds try to make popular art. It makes them work to be clear, and clarity is one of the most important and elusive aspects of art. But frankly, if one has the craft to show believable, emotionally compelling characters trying their best to get what they want, only to end up making a great sacrifice to get what they need, then you can get away with anything else that you want to get away with.
I’m not sure how I feel about Jean Cocteau as an avant-garde poet, but I adore him as a popular artist. Beauty and the Beast may not have been what he wanted, but it might have been just what he needed.
Kind of like the LOST finale.
Next week: David Lean and Charles Dickens and Obi Wan Kenobi. Yeah, that’s right.
