This is one of my insomnia nights. I keep thinking of the latest Bertolucci opus, "Stealing Beauty" which I walked out on. My feelings are ambivalent. I am sure there is no real story. Essentially, the theme is about a beautiful nineteen year old needing very much to lose her virginity. It is a pictorial glorification of this primordial ritual.
The players are a familia Cinecitta melange of poets, artists, ageing courtesans and satyrs.
The maiden arrives at the altar and the camera greets her and walks with her over a country estate of sprawling proportions. They pass, together, life sized sculptures, many in the supine positions of pleasure. The statues seem Roman in construct. So close does the camera pan that sometimes only a portion of the subject can be seen at one time.
For a while only the architecture and the maiden are pictured. Ultimately she encounters an elderly, seasoned blonde, a decadent, ill character played by Jeremy Irons, a voluptuous, lounging woman and a grungy looking, unshaven man who says he wants to look at her for a while before he begins a portrait of her. Of course, I cannot fault him for this. She is very worthwhile visually, sometimes in a low-cut, mid-thigh shift which augments rather than conceals the perfection of her body. The flimsiness of its weave makes it conspiratorial with the breeze that is trying to remove it.
A very old Jean Marais--he of the original Cocteau "Beauty and the Beast--greets her warmly and familiarly. I can think of no reason for his presence in the film except perhaps that he exudes a kind of elegant decadence--white haired and frail, another sculpture of depravity though a living one--perhaps the reason Bertolucci hired him for the part. Who else would have seen him as an asset to a cast already chock full of characters unto a Bacchanal. The camera moves on.
Couples cavort in a pool nude as the progenitors of us all. Our heroine romps in a staged scene, innocent play in her revealing shift that the breeze still tries to remove. A young girl-child whirls unrestrainedly with the maiden and the camera records the gratuitous ballet. Later, it follows the heroin through flashes of chiaroscuro, as she goes form atrium to stone interiors. She is treated to sounds and partial views of a couple in a frenzied stage of the eternal embrace. She hides in the shadows to tarry rather than escape. She emotes with star quality the full range of artfully phrased erotic expressions of empathy. The camera is stealing beauty.
At night, sleep eludes her. The camera gazes lovingly at her body, pauses on her perspiring face, where droplets of moisture form on the upper lip of her parted mouth.
I may return to give the movie a second chance.
Bravo Bernardo, voi sapete godere la vita. Bernardo, you know how to live.
Post scriptum:
Today I went back to the theatre to check on the name of the female lead. Liv Tyler. As I wrote the name down on a scrap of paper, literally my losing Lotto receipt, a voice addressed me.
"You seen the movie?" she asked.
"Yes," I replied.
"Is good?"
"If you like Bertolucci."
There was no animation in her face. No comprehension.
"It's kind of avant-garde . . ." I stopped. The face was stony, impenetrable.
"It's about a nineteen year old trying to lose her virginity."
"Vy not---vy not." The woman's face broke into a broad smile.
"Vy not? What's so bad?"
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