Stealing Beauty

This is my favorite film. I first saw it in 1996 at the age of 16, and have been relentlessly teased ever since for enjoying it as much as I do. True film buffs, I am told, walked out on this one. I insist though that I don't have bad taste; the film simply struck a chord in me early on, and yes, it was probably because its was such a pretty film. Beauty can be quite a hook. Since then I have watched Stealing Beauty no less than a hundred times, studied Bertolucci's other films, and - of course - listened to the soundtrack, and the Mozart Concerti, so much that I have been known to hum them in my sleep. Now, I know why I love it so much. Every time I watch Stealing Beauty, there is more to discover. The premise - looking for her father/true love - and the apparent conclusion seem no more than a frame work for a hundred different leitmotifs that Bertolucci seems strangely familiar with, fascinated by, and adept at expressing in all of his films.

I am a Bertolucci fan, and this film is one of the reasons why. I watch it again and again and never get tired of it. Don't be fooled by the 'losing virginity' theme; this film is about life, and death, and everything that happens in between. It's about what you seek and what you're willing to give up to get it.

One of the best things about this film is that every character has a story, and an arc in the film, most of which is given by just one or two lines or shots in the film. For example, near the end of the film, Sinead Cusack's character slumps at the table after having taken an old friend to the hospital, probably for the last time. She says she misses England "and rain, and milk that goes off", and says that she's tired of looking after people. Then everyone starts coming in and asking about dinner, and she just gets up and opens the fridge. In less than a minute, we see into her life and character in a way that most films would take at least an act to explore. We even learn a lot about Lucy's mother (Lucy is played by a young Liv Tyler), even though she has died before the beginning of the film and never appears in it except in a photograph (also of Tyler).

There is not a flaw in any of the performances. Never do we feel that these are people acting. They just feel like people, interacting, and we always have a feeling of their life leading up to the moments we see them, and they are interesting lives.

The location itself is one of the characters, and it is beautifully shot, the colours saturated and rich. It feels like you can touch the stones, smell the air, feel the grass and flagstones beneath your bare feet. If you don't want to go to Tuscany after seeing this film, you are ill or on the wrong medication. The beauty that is being stolen, or that people want to steal, is not just the beauty of the young virgin on the hill, it is the beauty of life, of living, of learning, of looking back and finally giving it all up, knowing it cannot be stolen. I know that some people criticize Bertolucci for his aesthetic, for bringing the beauty out of every moment, even the horrible ones, and I say to those people that they live the life they choose.

Finally, there is the soundtrack, which runs from alt-pop to classical to everything in between and works perfectly. It illuminates Lucy's internal reality and is true to the music that a girl of her age would have been listening to at that time, and it also helps set the scene and smooth transitions between scenes.

This is a master work by a master director, and one of my favourite films of all time.

I have to say this, so forgive: if you are a woman, you will understand this movie. If only my own adolescence and graduation into womanhood could have been so rich and beautiful. This film is one of my favorites! It is masterfully filmed, it couldn't help but be with Bertolucci at the helm. Liv Tyler is gorgeous and full of youthful innocence, romance and curiosity. For me, the whole experience of naively stumbling into one's sexuality is accurately portrayed. If you go in expecting that you will see a "Hollywood" ending--one that neatly ties up all the loose ends of the character's life--then you will be disappointed. This film is about a "chapter" in the journey of one young woman's life. And it's a fine chapter.

When this filmed first came on the scene, there was a lot of critics that downed the intensity of this film... of course their favorite words were pseudoartistic crap. America is not ready for this film. Look at what we embrace in our films: blood, sex, nudity, shock value. America is not ready for a film that sees the attraction towards a 19 year-old as a natural thing. American normalcy sees this as wrong, deceitful, and impure. Bertolucci did not make a film, he reflected humanity through a camera. This film dives into our own psyche seeking the desires to be pure and innocent. Only America would see this as a piece of psycho sexual fantasy into our own pedophiliac desires. Watch it people, there's a substance that you're not used to seeing in everyday flicks.

A question especially uneasy to answer in this case. The plot, of course, is very simple and even trivial: young girl loses her virginity and discovers her father's identity, gaining love and surrendering death (the never understood death of her mother), while her older admirer (Jeremy Irons) who only felt in love once - with her mother - gains love again but death at the same time. This pretty kitschy plot, together with the lack of movement in great part of the film, could make it unbearable. But it results much more ambivalent... First note that you wouldn't think at all you're dealing with a movie from 1996. Actually, when I saw it I had no idea from when it was and I estimated it to be from the late 1970's or early 80's. That has to do, above all, with the ethereal landscape-cinematography, this really magnific beauty of every movement the camera (and Liv Tyler!) make, but with the music, too. When there appears Mozart's clarinette concert, for the first time, while you see the field and the house sleeping "siesta", it can make you cry because of pure beauty you conceive... And there are many moments in this film, where music (timeless and time-switching) and picture make you feel so unsure about the era this film is telling about. "Beauty hurts the heart" says Jean Marais' character once. And actually, it does. The eroticism of this movie, for my taste, was sometimes almost painfully sad and joyful at once. Difficult to describe. Between, there are many occasions where you can find the vulgarity of the story just repelling, but then comes such a vigorous sequence again... It reminds me of some of the last Rohmer movies, in some respect, although it is much warmer and not that boring. (Rohmer's coolness, nevertheless, prevails him for falling in kitsch, something that Bertolucci doesn't avoid.) The movie, in some precious moments, does exactly do what its title promises: it steals pieces of beauty from this incredible world - but it has few awareness of it. Its explicitly "deep" parts are too immature and presumptious, but its superficiality contents a profoundness that convinced me. As a piece of art, I have to consider this movie too superficial, as a piece of " just feeling" (a word that I normally hate), I cannot let to like it. 6 of 10.