Books by Jean Cocteau

“The film La Belle et la Bête by Jean Cocteau, which came out in 1946, is one of the most beautiful adaptations of a fairy tale that has ever been filmed. It appears on many critics’ lists of the great French movies. Cocteau was a great poet, writer and polymath. He was also a film director and made some beautiful films. This is the diary of how he put together his film of ‘Beauty and the Beast.’ It’s a very honest diary about his experiences; he tells you about the difficulties. They started filming just a few weeks after World War Two ended. You hear about power cuts, the theft of props—because they were filming in the countryside and people were so impoverished. You hear about the lack of funds and about sickness, with people falling ill while they were filming. He’s very specific and very vivid about the technical challenges. You hear about smoke machines and magnesium torches and red powder, and a thousand mechanical bits and pieces…It’s a disaster. It reads almost like a moral fable of why nobody should ever try and make a movie.” Read more...

The best books on Fairy Tale Tellers

Nicholas Jubber, Travel Writer