Abstract

A colleague of Jung’s, Marie Louise von Franz (1915–1998) was a widely acclaimed commentator on the fairy tale form that she said was an instance of ‘pure’ archetype. In this chapter, I want to examine this claim and other facets of her interpretations of fairy tales by using poet, artist, film and theatre director Jean Cocteau’s film of the ancient tale of Beauty and the Beast (La Belle et la Bête, 1946) as a focal point.