Wickedpedia
Register
Advertisement

Lord Forte, also known as Maestro Forte or Forte for short, is the castle composer and the main antagonist of Beauty and the Beast:& The Enchanted Christmas 1997 film. Due to the curse, he was transformed into a large Pipe Organ. As the Beast's private and personal confidante, he proves to be more useful to his master while transformed than he ever was as a human musician, and will do anything to keep the spell from breaking, mostly by enforcing the prohibition of Christmas and keeping the Beast miserable and angry while also convincing the Beast he is his only real friend. He was voiced by Tim Curry.



Role in the film[]

Lord Forte sends Maestro Fife, his small flute servant, to break up the merriment between Belle and the Beast, not wanting them to fall in love and break the spell. He believes that "humanity is overrated" and that he has more use and power in his enchanted form. Fife mostly fails to break up the two, but Belle and the Beast are broken up anyway while they are making snow angels and the Beast sees his "angel"  more as the "shadow of a monster" next to Belles angel and leaves furious and depressed after destroying the two angels. Fife has overheard all this and rushes off to tell Forte. Forte plays along, saying that "the girl doesn't care how you feel about Christmas", separating the two even more. However, Beast gets in the christmas mood anyway, and asks Forte to compose a christmas song as a present for Belle, who agrees unhappily. When he leaves, Forte puts his plans in motion, and plays beautiful music, attracting Belle to his room in the West Wing. Forte quickly manipulates Belle, telling her that the tree was always Beast's favorite part of Christmas, and that the perfect tree most likely lies in the Black Forest outside the castle as very few trees grow inside the castle grounds.

While Belle unwittingly searches for the perfect tree, Beast is left waiting for Belle to show up to a quiet dinner so he can show her the song, but Forte claims "she's abandoned you!" and fans the flames of Beast's anger and become his mindless slave. He send him to destroy the Christmas decorations and dinner an looking for Belle. Forte had previously ordered Fife "to make sure they don't come back", and in the forest, mostly because of ice, a dangerous chain reaction starts that leads to Beast having to rescue Belle from drowning under thick ice. He then locks Belle in the dungeon because she had promised to never leave the castle grounds. However, Belle's Christmas gift she had given to the Beast earlier reminds him there is hope to break the spell and become the man he once was, so he asks for forgiveness and plans to have the best Christmas ever. But Forte, his plan thwarted, attempts to bring the whole castle down with loud thunderous music, as they can't fall in love if they're dead, much to the disagreement of Fife as it is extreme. Beast manages to get into the room, but is repeatedly knocked down by Forte's magical music notes, but Fife points out Forte's weak spot, the keyboard. Beast manages to reach the keyboard and rip it free, causing Forte to lose his power, unable to play any more notes. Forte then tries to reach his smashed keyboard but the chains bolting him to the wall are ripped free and he collapses, accidentally killing himself. The Beast appears sad when Forte dies, even though he knew he had tricked him and tried to seperate him from Belle.

Trivia[]

  • Forte's face is very similar in design to the Magic Mirror from Snow White.
  • Forte was the only character of the film to be entirely computer animated, except for his human form which was hand drawn.
  • The scene where he shouts, "I'M BOLTED TO THE WALL!" became popular on Youtube.
  • Before he sang "Don't fall in love" Forte was a very unenthusiastic singer.
  • Forte's eyes are usually black but during the climax to "Don't fall in love" they flash green.
  • The concept of Forte using music to comfort and later control his master was inspired by the phrase, "Music soothes the savage beast."
  • During his final performance to destroy the castle Forte reveals that he never took a music lesson, meaning his composing skills come only from raw talent, which combined with his reluctance to sing or compose anything original, explains why, when ordered to compose a Christmas song for Belle, it was largely out of tune and the written notes were poorly formed, smudged and spattered.
Advertisement