For the Slide Show of Doom I was putting together for Open Day, I had the brief of finding "interesting YouTube clips about libraries" and peppering them throughout. Now, if you are a librarian, there are plenty of YouTube clips about libraries which you may personally find "interesting", but which, on reflection, aren't really suitable for the general public.
I found a clip stolen from the Disney production of The Music Man, starring Matthew Broderick and Kristin Chenoweth (who I loved in West Wing and was the only person worth watching in RV). It was one of the spate of classic musicals remade for TV by Disney during the early 2000s, and the clip I found was, of course, the "Marian the Librarian" number - which was brilliant. Only, it went for over seven minutes, and I wanted exactly 14 seconds' worth. Just the exchange leading to the punchline:
"What would you like to take out?
"The librarian."
The various means I had at hand for keeping and cutting the clip simply would not work with the PowerPoint slide I was putting together. Every time I thought I'd managed to side-step one problem, it wouldn't work for a completely different reason. In the end, I had to forgo using that clip because I just couldn't get everything to work together for free, and I'd already wasted enough time downloading programs that looked helpful, but weren't. However, I found myself left with a desire to watch the rest of the movie.
I have to admit I've never seen The Music Man, but only pieces of it. I was hoping to correct that over the weekend, but the three DVD rental shops I tried didn't have any version - Disney or original. And, yet, I was in the right frame of mind for a musical (which seems to be a permanent condition these days - I've spent the last four weekends in a row watching musicals). In particular, I wanted a musical with the same feel as the one I couldn't watch - which was harder than I thought as my personal collection didn't have anything I'd consider in the same vein. So, I ended up watching Beauty and the Beast, because it was the closest thing I could find.
Now, I haven't seen the movie version of Beauty and the Beast for a good ten years or so, but a few years ago I watched the stage version, as performed by one of the local amateur theatrical companies. I had bought two tickets on speculation, assuming I'd be able to rope someone into coming along with me, and I ended up seeing it with Conor, who was in town for his holidays. Conor's father was working on a new subject for the Humanities department concerning horror movies*, and while Conor was in town he had been watching through a stack of horror films with his father. He made the comment about how seeing a musical based on a romantic Disney cartoon would probably just seem freaky and weird after watching all of the blood and gore and terror...
The show was actually rather underwhelming, due to a woefully miscast Beast. He really didn't bring anything to the show, and you have to believe in the Beast if it's going to work.
Sitting down to watch the movie again, I was struck by two things: Firstly, it really is rather beautiful to watch. It was one of the first Disney films where they used a combination of computer animation (to create "three dimensional" renderings for the foregrounds and rooms) and hand-painted backgrounds (to show the French provincial countryside), and it's absolutely gorgeous. The years have been kind to the technology used, and it doesn't look dated at all.
Secondly, we've probably reached the point with CG animation that you could easily remake the film as "live action" - imagine what Weta could do with the special effects for the Beast and the talking furniture.
As I was thinking this, it suddenly occurred to me that the whole Beauty and the Beast saga was actually a horror story gone horribly wrong. The "haunted castle", the man transformed into a hideous, ferocious wolf-like thing, the corner of the woods where nothing good can live or grow, the innocent girl who wanders into the woods and finds herself in the unfortunate position of being the chosen Bride of the Monster...
But then it suddenly turns into a romance and they all live happily ever after.
If they did make a live-action version of Beauty and the Beast, they really should make it scarier. It needs a few good scares.
As it was, the film I watched wasn't exactly the film I remembered. It was some "special edition" jobby with an added musical number/scene. Interestingly, this new scene addressed one of my main peeves with many romantic movies - the lack of "getting to know you" moments. I just can't buy the love story if I don't have some indication that the characters have actually had a couple of conversations at some point. The new scenes added to B&B gave the impression they actually spent quite a bit of time in each other's company, making it more believable that they might fall for each other.
Yet, at the same time, it annoyed me - just like the "Special Edition" of Bednobs and Broomsticks annoyed me. I sat down to watch a favourite film from my childhood, only to find it wasn't the same film - and I hadn't been given the option to watch the film I knew. That's the thing that irks me most about "Special Editions" - the people who make them are so convinced that we'll be happy to see "more" that they don't even consider the fact that we might want to see the old version. That's why Star Wars fans all hate the Special Editions of the original trilogy - no one responsible for the DVDs understood the fact that the fans just wanted to see the best and cleanest version of the films they new and loved.
This post isn't actually going anywhere, it has to be said. I largely started it for a chance to share my favourite lines from B&B:
"New, and a bit alarming./ Who'd have ever thought that this could be?/ True, that he's no prince charming,/ But there's something in him that I simply didn't see..."
And
"I use antlers in all of my decorating."
I don't know why those are my favourite lines, they just are.
* I know that I'm not really one to talk, as I took his subject on "Science Fiction, Fantasy and Popular Culture", but horror movies? As a course in a university degree? Really?
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