I tried, I really did.
The enduring (and, to my mind, mistaken) image of the Beast has been that of a big cat. Ferocious, to be sure, but also powerful, sleek, attractive--watered down and prettied up to romance an audience of fourteen-year-olds. I always liked to think I'd resist the urge to, well, lionize him in the Disney sense. Rackham did, and Dulac--forgoing fashion and form and arriving at something resembling more Murnau's Nosferatu--something nearer the ugly truth. (The three were comtemporaries--did one inform the others? was there something in the postwar waters?). But has a grace been lost and are you plucked from the story because of it?
So maybe I didn't try at all. I clearly don't have the stomach for the unsettling, so here he is--curried and cleaned for easy viewing.
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