Howard Ashman: "Beauty and the Beast"

Howard Ashman won a second and final Oscar for a title song -- "Beauty and the Beast."

In that year, he could have won for "Belle" or for "Be Our Guest" (both were also nominated) -- but the Academy made the right choice.

There is really only one version of "Beauty and the Beast." It's not Emma Thompson's. It's not Audra's. It's not the versions authored by John Legend and by Celine Dion.

The only version is the first version, Angela Lansbury's. "Beauty and the Beast" is a work of musical theater, and there's something electrifying (and "meta") about having a theater legend (Mrs. Lovett, Rose, Cora Hooper) deliver the commentary at the climax of the story.

The words of the song "Beauty and the Beast" are simple and direct; they actually seem to have been handed down through generations. They do not seem to have originated at a desk in the late eighties or early nineties. And this is a case of form matching content. "Tale as old as time; song as old as rhyme; beauty and the beast." You really do feel that you're hearing a song "as old as rhyme."

The fireworks happen at the bridge, where Ashman deliberately uses (and re-uses, and re-uses) a slightly archaic construction, involving the word "Ever":

Ever just the same....

Ever a surprise....

Ever as before....

Ever just as sure...

As the sun will rise....

That little spin at the end--the timelessness of the rising sun--beautifully ends a small series of explosions. If this doesn't give you full-body chills, I'm not sure you have a beating heart.

Ashman's Oscar victory made history; he wasn't present at the ceremony; he was the first person to-die-from-AIDS-and-then-to-win-a-posthumous-Academy-Award.

A little gay history on a Saturday. I really enjoyed the new documentary.

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