I felt nostalgic last night so I put in an old favorite "Stealing Beauty." Yesterday was a super busy day for some strange reason and I was slightly annoyed because of it. I was expecting to have a relaxing day and it was totally ruined. Anyway, I decided to go with a resolution-less year this year because it is my estimation that resolutions are the death of resolutions. Why bother? You're going to break it anyway because you're used to doing what you've been doing. In order to solicit a change, you have to do it. Just do it. No plans, no "I'll do it tomorrow", NOW! You're always going to go back to what's comfortable if you let yourself. I'm just doing this because I love movies and at least doing this, I'm doing something towards something I love. So I'm taking things day by day and we'll see what tomorrow brings.
Stealing Beauty is one of my all time favorite films. I can never get enough of it partly because I wish I was in that movie. The film is directed by Bernardo Bertolucci and I have to say it's one of his finest films. It definitely takes you back to the mid nineties with the music that plays throughout, but that's one of the many charms of this film set in Italy. Liv Tyler is simply gorgeous and a pleasure to watch. I was reading the message boards on IMDB and I saw a post that said that this film does not translate well to American audiences. That is one of the most absurd things that I've ever heard. That's to suggest that we as Americans are too stupid or ignorant to grasp another way a life different from our own. I really love how that person spoke for all of us. Genius. I wish people would stop thinking in terms of nationality and stereotypes and just start living their lives as an example of a person instead of exposing that which are perpetuated by the flocks that dare not think for themselves. That's why we as Americans are looked upon so poorly by other cultures because of our undying ignorance and entitlement to everything. Not all of us have the same viewpoints, prejudices, and objectives. I'm tired of people trying to tell us how to live our lives. Lose the control issues please!
Stealing Beauty is about an American who goes to visit her late mother's friends in Italy to have her portrait done. It's also about the loss of innocence and a young girl's journey to losing her virginity. It's an outstanding and beautiful film in my opinion. All the little nuances in this film just kill me because it's cinema in it's most purest form. The cinematography is stellar and it's almost as if the entire film is improved because the acting is so real and natural. I'm in LOVE with this film. I get sad every time it ends because I love these characters. The film stars Liv Tyler, Jeremy Irons, Sinead Cusack, Rachel Weisz, D.W. Moffett, and Joseph Fiennes. Liv Tyler is wonderful as Lucy, a young girl who wants to lose her virginity to a boy she met a few years earlier in Italy and they wrote letters to each other after she left. She's also on a mission to discover who her real dad is based on a journal entry her mother wrote about an encounter in an olive grove. Jeremy Irons is just brilliant as Alex, a writer who is very sick and dying and wants Lucy to lose her virginity to the right person. He does want her for himself but he's in no position to fulfill her so he and the other residents of the villa live vicariously through Lucy. Everyone else is really great too and you feel apart of the group when you watch the film.
There are poems that Lucy writes during the film that are really beautiful and you see the words on the screen as she writes them. They are really intimate scenes and another reason why I love this film. There's a lot of little things that make this film special to me and I'll give one example. There's a scene where one of the characters, Noemi, hears the phone ring and she runs to go answer it. In the process she knocks over a wooden chair and the camera stays on the knocked over chair as she runs out of the frame. I love that kind of thing. It makes the experience more real to me. There's also a couple of scenes where you get a close up of Liv Tyler's face that are just beautiful. Nothing about this film feels staged, which is why I love it and the fact that it's filmed in the Italian countryside makes it even more blissful. This film won't appeal to everyone and you have to have an open mind for a cinematic experience such as this. It's not a big blockbuster or anything and as a matter of fact it only grossed only 5 million in the box office. It's just another hidden gem for me. Another great thing about this film is the music. The music is very diverse in this film, almost equivalent to a Quentin Tarantino film and it fits each matched scene perfectly.
All of these elements in this film have a special place in my heart and that's why this film is one of my all time favorites that I can watch over and over again. The film ends with Liv Tyler walking back to the villa and the camera takes us flying past the villa and across the countryside and into the city and it makes me sad every time. So I just restart the film and watch it again so it will never end. I recommend this film to everyone but if you you don't like art films then don't bother, but I challenge you to open your mind up to it. If you don't like it, I'll put up a post on Transformers 2 for you...bleh! Thanks to those who read and support me :-)
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