Eroticism marks the spirit that surrounds this entire film where what is suggested is much more important than what actually happens. After her mother's suicide, Lucy Harmon (a 19-year-old girl played by Liv Tyler) travels to Italy with the aim of seeing herself portrayed on canvas. But that's not her only motivation: she wants to get to know Nicolo Donati (Roberto Zibetti) better - a young heartthrob she fell in love with the last time she visited that country - and decipher some enigmatic texts she read in her mother Sara's diary. But those waiting for her in Italy seem to be more intrigued by the young American's virginity.
In the house that welcomes it, some eccentric characters are hosted, a dying gay playwright, a lawyer from the world of entertainment, the sculptor who owns the house, his wife, among others. In this country retreat, intellectually very stimulating and conducive to triggering the most intimate emotions thanks to the summer heat in the middle of silent fields, Lucy undertakes two journeys, the search for the truth about her mother and her own birth and the discovery of her sexuality. The environment you live in awakens desire in the different characters, each in their own way. Lucy's beauty, youth and sensuality make her the object of attention of the men in the house, but it is she who chooses, after several attempts, the one with whom she wants to lose her virginity.
Bertolucci has been, since the last tango a Parigi (1972) an expert director in the presentation of eroticism and sexuality. In this work, we find a vivid contrast between the calm and peaceful beauty of the environments and of the protagonist and the immense work that is done on desire in its different manifestations and realizations, in its rationalization or not. Eros is the essential drive dealt with here, from the most subtle gaze to open-air prostitution, passing through explicit sex scenes. Here, all scenes fit into the projection, showing several truths of life, how no person is what they really appear to be, and also the hard quest for maturity. Strong messages, translated into brilliant scenes. Each new character is presented as if it were a priority in the film. With a well-constructed script, which gave strength to all the characters to fit into Lucy's exciting quest, the film increasingly involves the viewer. With very indiscreet close-ups that draw sighs from the viewer, Bertolucci, awarded by several organizations, does here a less recognized work, but brilliantly filmed! His direction explores the details and, with a slow and safe rhythm, he involves the viewer with the characters, without letting the projection ever get monotonous.
The cast perfectly portrays what the film sets out to show, starting with the protagonist Lucy, played by the beautiful Liv Tyler, who exudes innocence and serenity. The character who draws the attention of all the male characters in the film goes to Tuscany, to the house of some relatives, after the death of her mother, under the pretense of having her portrait painted, when in fact she seeks to meet the boy again. Which she gave her first kiss. Still in the cast we have the couple that welcomes Lucy, Diana, the always impressive Sinéad Cusack, a loving woman, but who brings a semblance of sadness and dissatisfaction, and her husband M. Guillaume played by Jean Marais, the artist who will paint the portrait of Lucy and that brings a long-kept secret.
A great highlight is also the character Alex, played by Jeremy Irons, he is a terminally ill man, who ends up enjoying a better life when Lucy enters everyone's lives and demonstrates friendship and confidentiality with the character who brings the best dialogues in the film. The plot still deals with issues such as betrayal, seduction, jealousy, and self-discovery. A striking singularity is the fact that Lucy, at certain times, writes a few verses in her notebook, and then tears up the pieces and burns them, or throws them in the wind, a way of expressing her feelings.
Nominated for the Palme d'Or in 1996, the film did not receive the award nor did it reach the quality of Bertolucci's other works. Despite the luxury cast and the recreation of an extraordinarily sophisticated environment in the most bucolic landscape, the argument is weakly sustained only by erotic suggestions. In fact, the action is small, based more on the intentions of the characters than on their consummation. Even so, the film achieves moments of great visual beauty and some great performances, such as Jeremy Irons in the role of a terminally ill patient.
It can be said that Stealing Beauty deals with three Great Themes: sexuality, as in sexual discovery or initiation; family and, more particularly, finding your parental origin, as Lucy proposes to do here; and, finally, art - the sometimes painful and difficult mysteries of the artistic process (and in this last topic, Bertolucci is certainly evoking another wonderful film about the beauty of body and soul, La Belle noiseuse (1991) by Jacques Rivette). We could say, with equal validity, that the film is about the beauty of a place, of a landscape - trying to give a little dignity to that chestnut tired of "the landscape being a character" in the cinema - because Tuscany looks amazing here.
And we could also say that it is a film about the 1960s, the radical free spirit of that decade and its legacy half corrupted, half renewed. There is an entire essay about the 1960s and its relationship to the 90s in the fantastically diverse selection of tracks and musical styles that fill the film and alter its texture in such seductive and daring ways - musically, this is a film that is right up there. With the best of Jean-Luc Godard or Martin Scorsese. If it is true that all art (as Walter Pater once observed) aspires to be music, then Stolen Beauty is an art film that aspires to be a musical. The soundtrack selection is an exciting and always surprising collage of classical, rock, blues and soul music. And when Bertolucci combines that sound with his characters' prowling, strolling, resting, and forever dancing movements, the result is utterly intoxicating.
Stolen Beauty is, in many ways, the companion film or book ending corresponding to La Luna. The deepest affinity between the films, however, is not at the base of the inverted plot, but at the level of style. In both, Bertolucci evokes a rebellious path of incident and narrative detail. Scenes begin and end abruptly, in lyrical or baffling swirls of motion. There are sudden moments of exhibitionist inventiveness, like the pages of a diary flashing before us, or the words of Lucy's poems materialized as words on the screen, slithering or bobbing up and down, as she looks straight at the camera and us. Characters sometimes behave in ways that are understandable only to them, sharing the comedy of some particular joke or code. The film gives us a unique diversity of feelings: it is sad, whimsical, delicate and eccentric - and also incredibly erotic. We've been blind to Bertolucci's talents for too long; this film, one of the best of the 1990s, reopens our eyes with an intensely pleasurable shock.
In the house that welcomes it, some eccentric characters are hosted, a dying gay playwright, a lawyer from the world of entertainment, the sculptor who owns the house, his wife, among others. In this country retreat, intellectually very stimulating and conducive to triggering the most intimate emotions thanks to the summer heat in the middle of silent fields, Lucy undertakes two journeys, the search for the truth about her mother and her own birth and the discovery of her sexuality. The environment you live in awakens desire in the different characters, each in their own way. Lucy's beauty, youth and sensuality make her the object of attention of the men in the house, but it is she who chooses, after several attempts, the one with whom she wants to lose her virginity.
Bertolucci has been, since the last tango a Parigi (1972) an expert director in the presentation of eroticism and sexuality. In this work, we find a vivid contrast between the calm and peaceful beauty of the environments and of the protagonist and the immense work that is done on desire in its different manifestations and realizations, in its rationalization or not. Eros is the essential drive dealt with here, from the most subtle gaze to open-air prostitution, passing through explicit sex scenes. Here, all scenes fit into the projection, showing several truths of life, how no person is what they really appear to be, and also the hard quest for maturity. Strong messages, translated into brilliant scenes. Each new character is presented as if it were a priority in the film. With a well-constructed script, which gave strength to all the characters to fit into Lucy's exciting quest, the film increasingly involves the viewer. With very indiscreet close-ups that draw sighs from the viewer, Bertolucci, awarded by several organizations, does here a less recognized work, but brilliantly filmed! His direction explores the details and, with a slow and safe rhythm, he involves the viewer with the characters, without letting the projection ever get monotonous.
The cast perfectly portrays what the film sets out to show, starting with the protagonist Lucy, played by the beautiful Liv Tyler, who exudes innocence and serenity. The character who draws the attention of all the male characters in the film goes to Tuscany, to the house of some relatives, after the death of her mother, under the pretense of having her portrait painted, when in fact she seeks to meet the boy again. Which she gave her first kiss. Still in the cast we have the couple that welcomes Lucy, Diana, the always impressive Sinéad Cusack, a loving woman, but who brings a semblance of sadness and dissatisfaction, and her husband M. Guillaume played by Jean Marais, the artist who will paint the portrait of Lucy and that brings a long-kept secret.
A great highlight is also the character Alex, played by Jeremy Irons, he is a terminally ill man, who ends up enjoying a better life when Lucy enters everyone's lives and demonstrates friendship and confidentiality with the character who brings the best dialogues in the film. The plot still deals with issues such as betrayal, seduction, jealousy, and self-discovery. A striking singularity is the fact that Lucy, at certain times, writes a few verses in her notebook, and then tears up the pieces and burns them, or throws them in the wind, a way of expressing her feelings.
Nominated for the Palme d'Or in 1996, the film did not receive the award nor did it reach the quality of Bertolucci's other works. Despite the luxury cast and the recreation of an extraordinarily sophisticated environment in the most bucolic landscape, the argument is weakly sustained only by erotic suggestions. In fact, the action is small, based more on the intentions of the characters than on their consummation. Even so, the film achieves moments of great visual beauty and some great performances, such as Jeremy Irons in the role of a terminally ill patient.
It can be said that Stealing Beauty deals with three Great Themes: sexuality, as in sexual discovery or initiation; family and, more particularly, finding your parental origin, as Lucy proposes to do here; and, finally, art - the sometimes painful and difficult mysteries of the artistic process (and in this last topic, Bertolucci is certainly evoking another wonderful film about the beauty of body and soul, La Belle noiseuse (1991) by Jacques Rivette). We could say, with equal validity, that the film is about the beauty of a place, of a landscape - trying to give a little dignity to that chestnut tired of "the landscape being a character" in the cinema - because Tuscany looks amazing here.
And we could also say that it is a film about the 1960s, the radical free spirit of that decade and its legacy half corrupted, half renewed. There is an entire essay about the 1960s and its relationship to the 90s in the fantastically diverse selection of tracks and musical styles that fill the film and alter its texture in such seductive and daring ways - musically, this is a film that is right up there. With the best of Jean-Luc Godard or Martin Scorsese. If it is true that all art (as Walter Pater once observed) aspires to be music, then Stolen Beauty is an art film that aspires to be a musical. The soundtrack selection is an exciting and always surprising collage of classical, rock, blues and soul music. And when Bertolucci combines that sound with his characters' prowling, strolling, resting, and forever dancing movements, the result is utterly intoxicating.
Stolen Beauty is, in many ways, the companion film or book ending corresponding to La Luna. The deepest affinity between the films, however, is not at the base of the inverted plot, but at the level of style. In both, Bertolucci evokes a rebellious path of incident and narrative detail. Scenes begin and end abruptly, in lyrical or baffling swirls of motion. There are sudden moments of exhibitionist inventiveness, like the pages of a diary flashing before us, or the words of Lucy's poems materialized as words on the screen, slithering or bobbing up and down, as she looks straight at the camera and us. Characters sometimes behave in ways that are understandable only to them, sharing the comedy of some particular joke or code. The film gives us a unique diversity of feelings: it is sad, whimsical, delicate and eccentric - and also incredibly erotic. We've been blind to Bertolucci's talents for too long; this film, one of the best of the 1990s, reopens our eyes with an intensely pleasurable shock.