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Stealing Beauty (1996)

Stealing Beauty (1996)

GENRESDrama,Mystery,Romance
LANGEnglish,French,German,Spanish,Italian
ACTOR
Jeremy IronsLiv TylerCarlo CecchiSinéad Cusack
DIRECTOR
Bernardo Bertolucci

SYNOPSICS

Stealing Beauty (1996) is a English,French,German,Spanish,Italian movie. Bernardo Bertolucci has directed this movie. Jeremy Irons,Liv Tyler,Carlo Cecchi,Sinéad Cusack are the starring of this movie. It was released in 1996. Stealing Beauty (1996) is considered one of the best Drama,Mystery,Romance movie in India and around the world.

For 20 years many visitors have come to the villa on an Italian hilltop owned by an English artist. Lucy, a 19-year-old American, was last there four years ago and wants to meet up again with the young Italian who kissed her and corresponded for a while. And she has brought the diary of her late mother filled with enigmatic poems that suggest Lucy was conceived on that hilltop. Lucy wants to find out if Daddy is the Italian war correspondent who wrote to her mother for 20 years. Then again Daddy could be the dying English playwright in residence or the artist who uses a chainsaw on tree trunks for his sculptures. The three, of course, have no idea that Lucy is there to solve a mystery. They, the artist's wife, daughter of that wife and the daughter's American lover are most intrigued by Lucy's virginity.

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Stealing Beauty (1996) Reviews

  • Watch again and again to understand Bertolucci

    manufortdev2004-10-19

    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.

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  • An Underrated, Misunderstood Gem of a Film

    gks10292005-06-13

    While Liv Tyler is the "star" of this film she is only one facet of a beautiful film. While many comments focus on the coming of age plot line. This film not only presents a sexual beginning, but also an emotional journey. With the death of her poet laureate mother, Lucy (Liv Tyler) must find her way to emotional and sexual adulthood. Fortunately, the film never gets bogged down, or depressing. Set in the lovely Tuscany province, Lucy's father sends her to spend time with friends of her mother and pose for an artist. Several of the characters are transparent, and easily understood, others are far more complex. Like life not all the answers are give, but the film rewards the viewer on multiple levels. Enjoy watching the secondary characters grow in their own ways as well. I hope this helps you.

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  • Liv and Bertolucci Make Italian Movie Magic!

    bdeyes812002-04-05

    Some of the most memorable sequences in Stealing Beauty occur in group situations. In one scene, a troupe of family members chat, sketch, and lounge in a sun drenched backyard while the camera follows each member of the family, capturing glimpses of their facial expression and bits of their conversations in what seems to be one endless take. In another scene, the camera pulls a similar track at a large outdoor celebration, this time using a few virtually seamless cuts to cover more territory and more people. These sequences, more than any other in the film, are representative of the essence of Stealing Beauty. The camera flows like a warm summer breeze, blowing through the trees and people, taking us back to your youth while rejuvenating a love for life in the moment. Stealing Beauty is about as solidly structured as such a movement; it has no finite beginning, no middle, and an abrupt end. Like so many great Italian films, it merely flows from one scene to another, defying genre or perhaps even storyline. Few films of the 1990s were so richly cinematic, and it's unlikely that Stealing Beauty would have achieved such a feat had it originated from any other country. With all that having been said, the plot of the movie would seem rather incidental, but it obviously does set up the events of the proceedings. Lucy (Liv Tyler) is an American who travels abroad to Italy to spend the summer with the friends of her recently deceased mother and their own extended family. She houses at their exotic country villa, where the virginal nineteen year old is secretly on a quest to find the identity of her father, convinced that her `father' back home is not a biological parent. While staying in Italy, she comes of age, learning the hard truths about first love, fidelity, innocence, and her budding sexuality. Of course such a succinct plot description lends the impression that this is an American-style loss of innocence drama, and this could not be further from the truth. The film never fully establishes itself in any genre. It is at once a drama, a comedy, a mystery, and a sex film. It is this element that adds to the film's distinctly cinematic flair, a trait that defines Italian cinema. With notable exceptions, Italian films are often (rightly or wrongly) criticized for their emphasis on the role of the director over the importance of actor and screenplay. In the case of Stealing Beauty, the latter is true but the former is not. In what had been heavily hyped as her star-making performance (the film's disappointing critical and commercial reception hampered this prospect), Liv Tyler delivers what thus far remains the finest work of her career. With her pouty lips, big blue eyes and long legs, her unconventional beauty stems from her appearance as a perennial adolescent on the verge of womanhood. Never before-and presumably never again-had this feature about her been so thoroughly exploited by a director. As Lucy, she brings to the screen the perfect mix of gawkiness and confidence, naïveté and overwhelming sexuality; she carries the presence of a femme fatale, full of mystery and fascinating to look at, and yet her heart is always planted firmly on her sleeve. She achieves that rare feat of not simply reciting lines, but speaking them; it's a performance so clearly personal and passionate that one might think we were watching a wholly improvisational film. Yet perhaps the real star of Stealing Beauty is Bernardo Bertolucci. Best known to American audiences for his 1987 epic blockbuster The Last Emperor, Stealing Beauty gave him a chance to go back to his smaller, more intimate roots (previously his best known film was the 1972 soft-core masterpiece Last Tango in Paris) while applying his epic sensibility. He lenses the film in the Cinemascope ratio, but he does not use the frame to capture grand Italian vistas (though several are on display) or masses of people. Instead he frames, in grand style, such tender moments as Lucy's bereavement over the true identity of her first love, or the sun lit walk home from losing her virginity. The film was photographed by Darius Khondji, whose visual sensibility was arguably the most recognizable and influential throughout the late 1990s, and few times in Khondji's career has a director's style worked so beautifully with his images. Much of the action takes place under the golden rays of a burning sun, showcasing a vivid color palette as rich as the fabric of the film itself. Though it takes place in present day, the look of the film lends a distinctly nostalgic overtone to the proceedings, perhaps reminding one of a contemporary, European take on Summer of '42. When released in the summer of 1996, Stealing Beauty was among the most highly anticipated films of the year for fans of art house cinema. There was a tremendous amount of hype surrounding Liv Tyler's "racy" lead role. It was believed, at the time, that the film could do for her Tyler in the summer of 96 what Clueless had done for Alicia Silverstone in the summer of 1995 (both had rocketed to fame as a homoerotic duo in the Aerosmith video "Crazy"). It was also expected to resuscitate the career of legendary Italian director Bertolucci after the failure of his recent films. Alas, when the film was released it drew mixed reviews and failed to appeal to mainstream filmgoers. Bertolucci's subsequent films were never even released in the United States, and aside from supporting roles in the blockbusters Armageddon and Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Tyler never jelled into the movie star the way most industry pundits predicted. Nonetheless, the film remains one of the most extraordinary Italian films of the 1990s. Both Bertolucci and Tyler are in top form here, and the film's unique success as a coming-of-age film despite completely defying the mechanics of the genre is an accomplishment in and of itself. Many of the best Italian films demand that you submit yourself completely to the vision of its director for the movie's duration, putting aside whatever standards or prejudices you have previously held true. Make such a commitment to Stealing Beauty, and the film is a smashingly effective work. My Grade : A-

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  • a European movie-lovely

    joesgrille2002-03-24

    While this is not my favorite Bertolucci film, Stealing Beauty left me inspired and contented. Bertolucci's brush strokes are wide, yet meticulously placed, leading us down a sensual and beautiful path of discovery. He packs a lot of plot into a week of story and two hours of film, but it is believable because many extraordinary things can happen in a short time frame when one travels abroad. Liv Tyler did well, reminding me of my teenage years, yearning yet still undecided. This movie has one of the best (sexy!) loss of virginity scenes in recent memory.

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  • America is not ready

    balthzar1999-07-01

    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.

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