Belle Epoque

It is a story as old as time, with songs beloved by all. Beauty and the Beast return this week starring Emma Watson in a live-action adaptation of the Walt Disney Pictures animated classic.

- Suzy Maloy

The Walt Disney animated fantasy musical Beauty and the Beast was immediately hailed as a masterpiece when released in 1991 during Disney’s second golden age of animation, along with The Little Mermaid, The Lion King and Aladdin. It was the first animation to receive an Academy Award nomination for best picture, winning two Oscars for best original score and song, and the first to gross more than US$100 million (S$130 mil) at the box office.

Arriving this week is a live-action retelling. Bill Condon (Dreamgirls) directs Beauty and the Beast with Alan Menken providing new recordings of the original songs written by Menken and Howard Ashman.

 It refashions the classic characters for a contemporary audience, and casting was pivotal for this beloved fairy tale romance of Belle, an independent young woman who is taken prisoner by a beast in his castle and learns to look beyond the captor’s hideous exterior into the kindly Prince within.

The filmmakers canvassed the worlds of film, television, music and theatre to find the talents best suited for each role. Emma Watson was the first to be cast as Belle, starring opposite Downton Abbey actor Dan Stevens as Beast. “From what I’d seen of Emma,” said Condon, “she seemed to be the person, both on screen and off, who best reflected the qualities that Belle embodied.”