Here’s a link to my blog post about the film. And here’s some
additional commentary on the Grimms’ version from my Annotated
Brothers Grimm: More than Beauty in “Beauty and the Beast,” Snow
White has become the quintessentially fair–both beautiful and
just–heroine of fairy tales. The innocent, persecuted heroine
par excellence, she succeeds in living happily ever after
despite the plots designed by her wicked stepmother. Named after
only one of the three colors that characterize her beauty (“skin
white as snow, lips red as blood, hair black as ebony”), she is
often connected with the purity and innocence that our culture
associates with the color white. But the term “snow” adds
another dimension to her characterization, deepening the meaning
of her innocence. Snow suggests cold and remoteness, along with
the notion of the lifeless and inert, yet it also comes down
from the heavens. And Snow White in the coffin does indeed
become, not only pure and innocent, but also passive, comatose,
and of ethereal beauty.