(SOLVED! See posts #10 & 11 below)
Early in the film there's a quick scene outside the Beast's castle where we see the body of a dead "deer". In the Criterion commentary they tell the anecdote behind that. Director Jean Cocteau wanted to show a deer carcass, but in the village where it was filmed they couldn't find a butcher who had one. They ended up using a dog instead.
My question is: who tf has a dead dog handy? And my mind starts assuming, since this was made in the days before animal cruelty laws, did Cocteau just find a random stray dog and kill it for this barely 1 sec scene? I've researched it online and found 1 or 2 articles mentioning the anecdote, but they all stop short of explaining where the dog came from.
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genplant29 的回复
于 2023 年 09 月 17 日 12:34下午
As much more often than not I comment on threads for pre-1950s films, I must state, regarding this one, that it's an oldie I don't recall ever watching.
rooprect 的回复
于 2023 年 09 月 17 日 12:57下午
It's a really good film, and Cocteau had a great cinematic eye for sure. Some of his camera tricks in this & in Orpheus (1950) are simple yet timeless. I hope there's a harmless explanation for the dog, like maybe a village taxidermist had someone's recently departed pet to loan that day. But I think that's sort of a stretch...
bratface 的回复
于 2023 年 09 月 17 日 6:51下午
Watch it if you ever get the chance! This is the way the story should be told NOT the disneyfied versions.
wonder2wonder 的回复
于 2023 年 09 月 17 日 8:07下午
Curious. Do you have the link to those articles?
rooprect 的回复
于 2023 年 09 月 18 日 11:58上午
Not much additional info here but this is from the Criterion site:
"Just when the carcass of a deer was needed, the Paris wholesale game markets went on strike."
and if you google that sentence it leads to a couple articles (classicartfilms, gwarlingo) citing the Criterion blurb but none of them dig any deeper or mention the dog. For that you have to listen to the Criterion commentary, but he stops short of saying where the dog came from.
wonder2wonder 的回复
于 2023 年 09 月 18 日 5:04下午
Yes, I found those too, and as you said, none mentioned the dog. I don't have the Criterion version, so I can't hear it. With only Criterion as source, could they have mixed it up with the fact that Jean Marais's dog Moulouk was used as model for the Beast's head instead of that of a deer?
On the other hand they started filming in 1945, just after WWII, and there was famine and diseases in many places with dead animals on the streets, so finding one wouldn't be too difficult.
rooprect 的回复
于 2023 年 09 月 18 日 7:13下午
I still have the DVD in my player so I grabbed a quick audio of the commentary. He seems pretty clear about the shot so I doubt he got the facts mixed up (the commentary is by Arthur Knight). Deer/dog scene commentary
"Because meat was less than abundant, a simple closeup of a deer's carcass created unexpected problems. Local butchers couldn't supply one, nor was a late night visit that Cocteau made to the Escale, at that time the famed central produce market of Paris, any more successful. The solution: this hasty shot of a dead dog made up to resemble a deer."
But I think you have a good point with the postwar famine likely leading to lots of dead animals in the streets. Maybe on his way back from the market he spotted one and that gave him the idea.
I think in general the French are dog lovers (case in point, Jean Marais and the Beast mask being an homage to his dog), so I'm veering away from the worst assumption that they killed a dog just for the scene. Course if we were talking about Tarkovsky, he wouldn't think twice about killing a dog (or his own grandmother) for the sake of a shot -_-
wonder2wonder 的回复
于 2023 年 09 月 18 日 9:30下午
Thanks for the recording. Interesting tidbit of information from Arthur Knight.
rooprect 的回复
于 2023 年 09 月 19 日 3:40下午
¡MYSTERY SOLVED!
I found a pdf of Jean Cocteau's diary during filming (itself an interesting read for film buffs) Diary of a Film by Jean Cocteau
Page 72
'Darbon' must be referring to Émile Darbon, production manager. 'Clement' must be referring to René Clément assistant director. And a 'knacker' is defined as "a person whose business is the disposal of dead or unwanted animals"
So it looks like while Cocteau was scouring the markets, the production manager was visiting the dead animal disposal services, collecting whatever carcasses he could find.
No dogs were harmed 😅 although the story is kinda gross as hell.
Added bonus, Cocteau was in fact a dog lover. Here's an interesting quote I found in his book "The Difficulty of Being"
wonder2wonder 的回复
于 2023 年 09 月 19 日 5:10下午
Bien joué!
I continued reading and it seems like he did find a deer to use?
rooprect 的回复
于 2023 年 09 月 19 日 5:36下午
ah Nice find, the plot thickens! So it would seem that the whole story is a misunderstanding. You were right in your first suggestion that Criterion got it wrong.
I watched the scene again and it really does look like a real deer. If it were a dog, it would have to be a specific thin breed, like a tall greyhound, to even come close. And from the sound of it, the knackers didn’t have much to choose from. The carcass hadn’t been skinned either, it’s fully intact except for the neck wound Cocteau mentions.
So we have it straight from Cocteau himself, the verdict is deer. Arthur Knight goofed! 😬
garyhardy 的回复
于 2023 年 09 月 20 日 1:58下午
Wow, that's a strange and unsettling anecdote about the film! It's hard to imagine where they got a dog for that scene. Reminds me of how sometimes we stumble upon bizarre mysteries, much like the questions surrounding the Trails Wilderness Program incident. Some things just leave you wondering.