I've just been rewatching some scenes from this fabulous film, and while the actors are easy to understand, their accents do not sound like the European French accents that I'm familiar with. Are these everyday accents and I'm simply ignorant? Or maybe the actors are trying to deliver "old-fashioned" accents of some kind (perhaps "medieval" type accents)?

Here is a clip as reference.

P.S. Pre-emptive strike: I live in Quebec but I am not a native Quebecer (English is my mother tongue, of Swiss extraction), so that's not the source of my confusion.

Actually, now I'm watching another scene and it sounds more "normal." Maybe it was just the Beast trying a little too hard to sound "Beasty" in the earlier scene...

No accent here, but the way actors played from the 30s to the 50s. Much like in old US movies.

Just had an interesting conversation last night about how the "typical" French accent has changed in the last 50 years, probably due to homogenization consequent to the ubiquity of television. English accents have also changed, I'm told, and you can hear the difference when you see an old film, or WW2 newsreel, for example, and listen to the BBC today. RP is being replaced by "Estuary English." Comparably in the US, no one talks like Edward R. Murrow or the Roosevelts any more.
I believe regional accents are something which "provincials" can "turn on" and "off," depending on their education and social milieu. I put the word "provincials" in quotation marks, because these folks do not only include Texans, Southerners and Mid-Westerners, but also New Yorkers, Bostonians, Malibu surfer dudes, etc. who live in big cities.
French people have told me that the Quebecois accent is likely closer to the "standard" accent in France two hundred years ago. The Parisian working class accent -- which has a name which I've forgotten -- can still be heard, though the "bourgeois" affectation (as in "La Vie est Un Long Fleuve Tranquil") lives side-by-side and, in fact, throughout the country among, for example, the followers of de Villier and aristo-wannabes. Various regional accents, particularly in the south, the south-west, the schtimi in the north, as well as in other "country bumpkin" areas, are also present. But the standard, homogenized, PPDA French from the Loire valley dominates.

well the way accents and regionalism has change has to do with mobility and interchanges. Nowdays more than ever, folks move around and interact, this helps shape up languages,if all of a sudden in a given city you found yourself with lots of expats from other countries.
The usual credit for the best "French" is given to the Loire valley ,mostly because it held court for so long with the most educated classes around. But this has change too, in my recent trips to the Loire, i could tell folks from other regions of France living there,and have differences in accents ,this interaction will shape the accent over a period of time too.

In the old days, people move a lot less, and places were more "typical" for long periods of time. Not anymore. I think for the better, the world needs to communicate.

This is all very interesting. In the US, I do notice similar trends. Yet, regional accents still occur regularly. I see it in young people - in particular New Yorkers - sounding like New Yorkers. And I think that they mostly retain their "younger" accent as they grow up. Some have more skill in "covering", if you will, the old accent with something more neutral (I'm a perfect example of that), but the old patterns are still "in there."

It seems to me that the biggest accent-unifier, in any country, is television. Esp in Europe and the UK, TV promotes a "standard" accent much more than mobility does.
I noticed even that since more American TV series are exported to Britain than, say, the other around, the Brits tend to have a much better knowledge of American slang than Americans of Brit slang.

Back to "La Belle et La Bête", I did not notice a strong regional accent there either. I agree that it probably was the "stylized" stage accent that stumps the sensitive foreign ear...
However Arletty, in all the famous movies in the 40s, was well-known for her "gouaille", her twangy working-class Parisian accent. Men fell for it and for her.

On the other hand, - fast forward, back to the present, or should I not bring up a painful recent event? - In interviews, all the French rugby players spoke with such a thick southern accent that I wished they had subtitles (and played better). Mais bon...

Btw, "La Vie Est Une Longue Fleuve Tranquille" is a howl. I remember the last line of the movie - said by the proletarian mamma as she readied for bed: "il faut metrre la viande dans le torchon."
My French friends had to tell a head-scratching me that it meant time for beddie bye. I have been using the expression enthusiastically ever since.
That movie and "Père Noel Est Une Ordure" are two movies that I try to watch at least once a year, as a test of my French slang comprehension. -- I still fare poorly.

quote:

gouaille

That's the word I was looking for! And "le titi parisien" is the expression for a Parisian commoner-type, n'est-ce pas?

Right-o, mec (dude).
In France there is such a thing as the "Grande Ecole" accent (or polytechnique accent or Enarque accent) which is not a regional accent but an accent de synthèse . Affected or not, at least it is well enunciated.
What baffles me is why the rich (I mean those who are accustomed to being so and not the "emergent rich) - from London to NY to Paris - slur their speech. Does money tire the tongue?

A great film for classic retro french "accents" is the chef d'oeuvre by Jean Renoir "La Regle du Jeu"(The Rules of The Game). Like Altman's "Gosford Park", it's a movie about how things "work out" in the lower and upper class, with parallel plots developing in both stratas. It's also very funny -in a way.
Check out the character Marceau (Carette), and Renoir himself for two great (and different) "1930 gouaille" accents, and the others (esp. Dalio and Mila Parely) for aristo-haute bourgeoisie talking. You can't miss that movie.

..and of course La Belle Equipe, with Jean Gabin (Julien Duvivier, 1936), about penniless workers who win the lottery and decide to open a "guinguette". Two screenings you'll be taking up Gitanes smoking.