Dangerous Beauty DVD [1998]

This movie was once known under the title "The Honest Courtesan" - which (to my mind) sounds a lot more intelligent and classy than this new "dumbed down" movie moniker,- and the film is all about class and substance.It recounts the life of a young girl who - due to social rank and standing in the golden era of Venice - is told she can never be with her true-love beau (he is betrothed into old money)- But she can be in his life if she becomes a a paid "Courtesan" a word that might be translated as "high-class whore" (if that term itself was not a sort of Oxymoron?) Courtesans in that world enjoyed a different respect and were celebrated by society in the way that more libertine citizens of modern America might celebrate Adult Movie Stars. Or in the way that SLEBS are expected to be beautiful and have interesting love-lives to entertain modern gossip columns? Indeed the entire lot of women and the attitudes to extra-marital mistresses is depicted here as so different to modern religious prudery- this film provides an education in itself. Without ever being sleazy, it explores the world of sex via very real emotional lives of the characters with wit and style, visually engaging costumes and the backdrop of Golden Era Venice itself. A little gem if you really want one.

I remembered having seen this film decades ago, and I recalled it being really interesting with a great story based on true events. I'd been meaning to buy it for some time and rewatch it. Now I have and it's still an excellent film, beautifully shot with wonderfully talented actors, and a great script.

This film claims it is a true story at the start, but it's a very dubious version of the real Veronica Franco's story. Despite that, however, it is a glorious romp of a movie, at least for the first two thirds. Filmed in a sort of golden 'Renaissance' light like Italian paintings come to life, it wallows in its own glorious decadence. The beautiful Veronica, unable to marry her love since her family can't afford a dowry, instead becomes a courtesan, trained by her mother, and rises in Venetian society. Full of seductive garden parties, Venetian salons, poetry competitions and the allure of sex, this part of the film works wonderfully.The problem comes when the film attempts to deconstruct the glamorous side of being a courtesan, which is, after all, just a prostitute dressed up in beautiful clothes and accomplishments. Veronica's struggle, and her trial under the Venetian inquisition, takes the film into a darker arena that sits very uncomfortably with the first half. It's not well-written enough to really engage with this, and the Hollywood treatement of her release spoiled everything that had gone earlier.The real Veronica Franco was far, far more fascinating than this film makes out, and didn't, of course, have the same kind of Hollywoood romantic gloss to her life. Rosenthal's The Honest Courtesan: Veronica Franco, Citizen and Writer in Sixteenth-century Venice (Women in Culture & Society), the first full-length study of Franco in English, was cited as the base of this film. It's a proper academic study of her life and writings in their social, economic and historical context, and while it may be hard going for a non-academic reader, it still reveals a more complex mind and society than this film even tries to.So overall I loved this film for its pure indulgence and beauty but felt uncomfortable when it tried to deal with anything darker or more realistic. Sadly there's a really good reason why this failed at the box-office despite the always-wonderful Rufus Sewell.ps. Veronica Franco's poems and letters are available at a reasonable price on Amazon Poems and Selected Letters (Other Voice in Early Modern Europe) if you're interested in exploring the reality behind the fiction.

Interesting film !!!

A very good film i thoroughly enjoyed itA Venetian courtesan becomes a hero to her city, but later becomes the target of an inquisition by the Church for witchcraft. If you like period dramas then i think you would enjoy this, It stars Catherine McCormack in the title role. All you need in a film,love,sex,jealousy,vengeance and then justice

I have no idea why the title was changed but it really is one of the all time classics for anyone who loves romantic tales involving females who win out over the odds. This is one of the films I can watch again and again (especially with my pal kipper and a bottle of wine). If I could have given it 10 stars I would have done!

This is a light, shallow, Americanised version of Veronica Franco's life. Quite fun to watch but half way through I was bored,not least by the unconvincing "passion" between Marco and Veronica on which the story turns. Gorgeous costumes and sets,superficial acting that might have been improved by a better script. Italian actors and the real Venice would perhaps have given authenticity. For a really fine film set in Venice of this period I would recommend "The Merchant of Venice"with its fantastic performance of Shylock by Al Pacino.

Recommended to me and was a good film