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nova-rogue · 4 years

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hey, odd question, but i’m curious: other than fandom stuff like Star Wars, what’s your favorite movie/movies? ive seen you post about knives out (saw it a few days ago, was really good) and the devil wears prada, but i like ur tastes in things so would you have any recommendations? sorry if this is rambly lol

it's all good, this is a fantastic question!

people have varied tastes and it's interesting to see the broader spectrum of what they like outside of fandom! i'll start off with my favorite more thought-provoking films first:

Knives Out

The Devil Wears Prada

Legally Blonde

Midnight In Paris (this is my absolute favorite live-action movie of all time)

The Theory of Everything

The King's Speech

Grand Budapest Hotel

The Great Gatsby (2012 - the novel is my favorite literary piece of all time and this adapatation is the most brilliant and just captivates the novel perfectly)

Paper Towns (love the John Green novel and the thesis that it's dangerous to view people as anything more than people, and we shouldn't put people on pedestals and build them up as something they're not!)

Crimson Peak (oh my god a Gothic by Del Toro... ❤️)

Arrival (2016 - absolutely breatakingly brilliant)

The Book Theif (i didn't read the book and there are some differences, but it's my sister's favorite book and the film is pretty great)

Amélie (it's french and it's fantastic)

Pan's Labrythinth (okay... another Del Toro masterpiece)

and some fun/interesting ones!

Alien

Speed Racer

Inception (does it give dudebro film majors wet cinema dreams? yes. should it? probably not. but it's good!)

Pacific Rim (again, Del Toro is *chef's kiss*)

Halloween 1978 & its actual sequel Halloween 2018 (horror should have real relatable characters with depth you can root for!)

It (2017 - i haven't seen the sequel yet but again, horror should have real characters with depth)

The Innocents (1961 - this was one of like literally 12 films shot in black and white on anamorphic lenses; it's horror, but it's so interesting and the cinematography of it is great for 1961)

Enchanted (yes, the disney movie)

Scott Pilgrim vs The World

and finally my top favorite animated films:

Tangled

Your Name (Kimi No Na Wa)

Howl's Moving Castle

that's all i can think of for now... if there's more to add i'll just reblog this and add on!! there are some films i haven't seen yet that i know will go on this list in the future when i get the chance, like 1917 and JoJo Rabbit and Parasite... but i haven't actually seen those yet lmao

i really just like... movies with a lot of depth and deep complex characters, films that are well written and well made!!

#answered #anonymous

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goblinfruit · 7 years

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This blog post talks about medieval precedents for Beauty and the Beast, which is cool. The precedents, I mean. Actually, I saw Beauty and the Beast and I… liked it. Gah. I blame my six or seven year old self who still has a very strong hold over me.

But 85% of the reason why I liked Beauty and the Beast so much is that my inner fairy tale nerd was having a party. Since it’s a literary fairy tale, there is so much fun stuff to discuss about literary traditions as well as typical story archetypes. Below the readmore: an undergrad English major’s ramble about Bisclavret, beast stories, and Beauty and the Beast

The medieval texts/authors the above linked blog mentions are about Women Who Read and also *drumroll* …Marie de France! Specifically, her lai Bisclavret which is my favorite story I had to read for Medieval Celtic Literature.

The post above provides a very brief, sparknotes summary of Marie de France (in short, we don’t know much aside from that she lived in the 12th century, she wrote translations, she was probably a nerd) and her werewolf tale:

“ This lai is called Bisclavret (or The Werewolf), and tells of a baron who shape-shifts weekly into a wolf. He disappears from his home for three days, and then reverts to his human form by putting his clothes back on. When his wife discovers his secret, she decides to get rid of him by sending a knight, her suitor, to steal his clothes after his next transformation. Bisclavret, unable to return to his human form, is forced to spend the rest of his life roaming the woods. His luck changes, however, when the king finds him and adopts him as a pet. But the story unravels when the king takes him on a visit to his former lands, now governed by his wife and her suitor. Seeing his wife, Bisclavret goes into a rage, attacks her and rips off her nose. She then confesses her deeds and returns the stolen clothes, enabling Bisclavret to change back to his human form and regain his lands. This is, of course, a much darker version than Disney’s joyful adapatation.”

No kidding, medieval manuscripts blog. What I love about this story is that the beginning very much sets this story up as a typical monster story, ooh there’s a werewolf man and the wife must find out his secret! The reader expects something similar to Bluebeard or the Robber Bridegroom to unfold, but no. When the wife betrays Bisclavret, the story shifts - we follow Bisclavret in his plight. He is referred to consistently as “Bisclavret,” the baron is the werewolf and the werewolf is the baron. When he’s a wolf he cannot speak but he has the mental power to supplicate the king and not bite people, for the most part. His mind is always that of a man, or at least retains a man’s chivalry.

His only violent act is coded with human emotion: revenge, justice, a moral lesson, what have you. In the lai, the audience is told that the wife will forever be nose-less and that her children and their children will also be nose-less. They are not kicked out of the court, but kept around. When my class discussed this, it was suggested that maybe this means she was the monster all along or that Bisclavret transformed her into a monster with a werewolf’s “bite.” (There’s also an article called “Metamorphosis and Language in the Lay of Bisclavret” by Kathryn Holten that discusses this AND gives some pretty stellar background/analysis of the werewolf literary traditions of Marie de France’s time. If you can find it and read it, you should). I’m inclined to disagree, though. I think the intersection of humanity/beast in Bisclavret is super interesting and makes heavy suggestions about the nature of each concept, and/or how they should interact. The wife can’t be a wolf if she doesn’t have a nose, come on!

There’s also a super interesting point of discussion regarding shape-shifters and their relationship to clothes. I read one of the oldest written werewolf stories in my Latin classes and that werewolf’s shape-shifting was also bound by his access to clothes. But that’s a whole other ramble.

And yes, the post I linked to was supposed to be about Beauty and the Beast. The fact that they referenced Bisclavret as a precedent to BatB really struck me. One, I think Bisclavret could be claimed as a precedent to any Western beastly story. Two, I like Bisclavret better than BatB because even though it’s a 12th century tale, its commentary on man’s beastly nature feels… more modern? Or at least sidesteps the bestiality/furry pitfall. I’ve seen beautiful art floating around tumblr that has the Beast as a quadruped (there was one artist that switched the genders - their lady!Beast was like a gryphon, it was neat). I think that’s better! Having a Beast that is for all intents and purposes a man just with a hair problem and sharp pointy teeth seems like a cop out to me. Make him a pants-wetting terrifying monster or get out of my house.

Also, Bisclavret’s commentary on the court reminds me more of the original Beauty and the Beast’s context, of the 17th and 18th century French salon women writers who wrote fairy tales as social commentary. Despite myself I enjoy Disney’s version. I’m not writing this post to say it’s terrible, but Beauty and the Beast and all of the concepts and traditions it plays with are more interesting than just “outsiders, bestiality, chicks who read, lol.” The Disney movie works great as a kid's movie, but that isn't all we should think of when we think of the tale. The original tale has an older version! It was sanitized even in the 18th century! Yes, I am pulling this from Wikipedia but bear with me:

“Villeneuve’s original tale includes several elements that Beaumont’s omits. Chiefly, the back-story of both Beauty and the Beast is given. The Beast was a prince who lost his father at a young age, and whose mother had to wage war to defend his kingdom. The queen left him in care of an evil fairy, who tried to seduce him when he became an adult; when he refused, she transformed him into a beast. Beauty’s story reveals that she is not really a merchant’s daughter but the offspring of a king and a good fairy. The wicked fairy had tried to murder Beauty so she could marry her father the king, and Beauty was put in the place of the merchant’s dead daughter to protect her. She also gave the castle elaborate magic, which obscured the more vital pieces of it. Beaumont greatly pared down the cast of characters and simplified the tale to an almost archetypal simplicity.”

I haven’t read the older version yet but I want to and need to. Also, I skimmed As Old As Time: a Twisted Tale when I was at Barnes&Noble, since “twisted tale” is a catnip phrase for me and I wanted to see what Disney would do with it in book form. What’s hilarious (to me) is that they have Belle’s mother BE THE ENCHANTRESS, who was married to Maurice back in the day. As backstory to the 1991 cartoon, that reads absurdly to me but it actually holds true to the oldest literary version of BatB. (I wouldn’t recommend the novel. This was the only thing that held my interest.)

In short: curse stories are great, animal bridegroom stories are great, fairy tales are nowhere near as cloying as we think despite the sparkles and happy endings, and I want more (and more clever) adaptations that play with older source material.

[Here is a link to an online pdf of Bisclavret, not the awesome translation I read for class but good enough I guess.]

[BatB fairy tale Wikipedia page]

[Here is a blog post that discusses the 17th century French salon women fairy tale writers]

#beauty and the beast #literature #fairy tales #marie de france #medieval #the envoy speaks #the envoy rambles anxiously

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