Beauty & the Beast, Part 3 - Maurice

The next section begins with Belle and Gaston talking. We reinforce a lot of what we saw in Little Town - Belle tries to avoid Gaston with her book, like she does everyone else. In fact, they don't have a real conversation until Gaston takes her book away.

A brief part of the conversation reinforces how much of a chauvinist Gaston is, and how Belle gets her digs in, in a way that won't cause retaliation.

Gaston: It's not right for a woman to read. Soon she starts getting ideas, and thinking...
Belle: Gaston, you are positively primeval.
Gaston: Why thank you, Belle.

Belle understands that she can't be direct with Gaston - To do so is to court violence. In fact the only time she really shows any sort of emotion aside from a mild sort of annoyance is when Le Fou and Gaston bad mouth her father Maurice (unnamed until much later in the movie). Then she gets defensive.

Belle: I have to get home to help my father. Goodbye.
Le Fou: Ha ha ha. That crazy old loon - he needs all the help he can get!
Gaston and Le Fou laugh.
Belle (Angrily): Don't talk about my father that way.
Gaston (turning on Le Fou): Yeah, don't talk about her father that way.
Belle: My father is not crazy - he's a genius!

Belle's statement is punctuated by an explosion coming from their cottage just outside town, belying her conviction about her father's sanity. Thankfully it gives her an excuse to extricate herself from Gaston.

Belle rushes in to find her father caught in the aftermath of a comical cartoon explosion that leaves nothing but soot and inconsequential debris.

Maurice is struggling with his prototype wood-chopping device (which looks like the sort of thing cooked up by someone who simply wanted to duplicate the motions of a man chopping wood, rather than the effects of a man chopping wood). It gives us an excuse to see Belle and Maurice interact.

And what does this reveal? That they've been on their own for awhile; That Maurice grouses a lot, but manages to get things to work eventually; that Belle is fiercely proud of Maurice.

A few other things: Belle knows her way around a toolbox, and Maurice is completely unaware of what the townsfolk think of him - he sees the surface of the little town, but not what's underneath. That he thinks of Gaston as "a handsome fellow". Maurice is probably someone who relates to machines better than people - Belle no doubt comes by her introversion honestly. One wonders what kind of woman Maurice's wife was. Also, Maurice probably doesn't plan on being in the little town much longer - he clearly sees them moving on to bigger and better things. Maurice the Parisian Edison? His device does work after all!

This is all important because we are about to shift focus entirely to Maurice. We have to make the audience care for Maurice, it will make his upcoming perils more perilous.

Maurice and Philipe (the horse) go into a dark wood and take the wrong turn towards Castle Beast. Note that Maurice has a map. If it was manufactured outside the enchantment zone, it's probably correct and does show a shorter route - one past the castle. Maurice may well have been perfectly correct to go the way he did - if only some Enchantress hadn't screwed things up! Philipe want's nothing to do with this path, both because of it's obviously scarier, but also because part of the enchantment probably wards it away.

Things rapidly degenerate and Maurice loses his way, his horse and his hat. Soon he will lose his freedom.

Maurice finds his way to the castle, there we meet the first of the two Objects - Lumiere and Cogsworth. Notably, Cogsworth wants to minimize damage, not upset the Master. Lumiere OTOH wants to help. Maurice reacts to them initially like they're automations, wanting to examine them, but he quickly copes with the idea of enchanted objects. The presence of a visitor to the Castle cannot be lost on either of them. Word rapidly spreads and soon Mrs. Potts and Chip also find their way to helping Maurice.

They all know not to turn away cold hungry visitors now. Sadly, their Master has not learned this lesson.

The Beast appears. We don't get a good look at him now. But we do see that he is large and powerfully built and fast despite his bulk. He travels largely on all fours, like an animal, even though he can move on two legs if he chooses. Notably at this point he does not choose to.

The Beast reacts to Maurice's presence with anger. He is all id. While he demands answers from Maurice, the answers do not matter. Nothing Maurice says will stop the Beast from doing what he intended all along - to stick Maurice in a dark hole.

And I think the reason for this is fear and shame. Until this point, only the other people in the castle know Adam's shame and horror. But what if this stranger left and told others? What if people came and discovered him? What if people treated him like the freak he knows in his heart that he is?

Beast: Who are you? What are you doing here?
Maurice: I-I-I was lost in the woods, and-and...
Beast: You're not welcome here!
Maurice: I-I-I'm sorry.
Beast: What are you staring at?
Maurice: N-nothing.
Beast: So, you've come to stare at the BEAST, haven't you?
Maurice: Please, I meant no harm. I-I just need a place to stay.
Beast: I'll give you a place to stay.
Maurice: No, no! Please! No, no!

Notably, the Beast does not simply kill Maurice. Deep down, he's not a killer and still has some piece of his humanity left. No what the Beast does is he hides the evidence of his shame. He reacts as a child would when they've done something horrible. They have to make it not so. The last thing Adam wants is to be seen, to be gawked at, and so he does the only thing that he can think of - he imprisons Maurice. It appears that he does this out of rage, but I think the rage is just masking his real emotion - fear and shame.