- Window design from Disney's Beauty and the Beast concept art.
Disney's Beauty and the Beast concept art, Hans Bacher
My tears are like the quiet drift
Of petals from some magic rose;
And all my grief flows from the rift
Of unremembered skies and snows.
I think, that if I touched the earth,
It would crumble;
It is so sad and beautiful,
So tremulously like a dream.
Clown In The Moon, Dylan Thomas
- Early concept art for the prologue of Disney's Beauty and the Beast (1991)
Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white; Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk; Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font: The firefly wakens: waken thou with me. Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost, And like a ghost she glimmers on to me. Now lies the Earth all Danae to the stars, And all thy heart lies open unto me. Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me. Now folds the lily all her sweetness up, And slips into the bosom of the lake: So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip Into my bosom and be lost in me. - Tennyson
'Many, many years ago in a sad, faraway land, there was an enormous mountain made of rough, black stone. At sunset, on top of that mountain, a magic rose blossomed every night that made whoever plucked it immortal. But no one dared go near it because its thorns were full of poison. Men talked amongst themselves about their fear of death, and pain, but never about the promise of eternal life. And every day, the rose wilted, unable to bequeath its gift to anyone... Forgotten and lost at the top of that cold, dark mountain, forever alone, until the end of time.'
- Pan's Labyrinth
La Belle et La Bête
'L'enfance croit ce qu'on lui raconte et ne le met pas en doute. Elle croit qu'une rose qu'on cueille peut attirer des drames dans une famille. Elle croit que les mains d'une bête humaine qui tue se mettent à fumer et que cette bête en a honte lorsqu'une jeune fille habite sa maison. Elle croit mille et une autres choses bien naïves.
C'est un peu de cette naïveté que je vous demande et, pour nous porter chance à tous, laissez moi vous dire quatre mots magiques, véritable "Sésame ouvre-toi" de l'enfance : "il était une fois...." '
Beauty and the Beast
'Children believe that which they're told and don't doubt it for a moment. They believe that a plucked rose can can bring great tragedy upon a family. They believe that the hands of a human beast will smoke as he kills his prey, and that this will cause the beast shame when a young girl begins to reside with him. They believe a thousand other simple things.
It is a little of this simplicity that I ask of you now, and, for good luck, allow me to say four magic word, that veritable "open sesame" of childhood: "Once upon a time..." '
-Jean Cocteau