This is best read with the song Jackie Blue by THE OZARK MOUNTAIN DAREDVILS as the theme.
It’s the end of summer soon to officially be cuffing season as it is known in the streets.
I try not to write these regularly as they seem somewhat to expose an obsession with certain actresses or at least their big screen interpretations. Not to mention i don't want to seem disrespectful to each individual and think by the next time i have moved onto a new piece about another actress or that i forgot them. this is testimony. The pieces i fear but hope aren't seen as sexist and misogynistic but I want to share me wonderment, fandom and expose actresses maybe for a wider audience. now my subject is a little more known then the last actress who I wrote a column about Olivia D'abo
Do you remember being star struck by Someone. There is something about them. That was so powerful it wasn't only their looks maybe their talent or charisma instilled a mystery you wanted to solve but either way made them instantly interesting and over the years were never able to shake it. They still fascinate you even if you know significantly more about them then when you first encounter them.
They might stay in your mind as an ideal of beauty or the type of person you are looking for. Or what you look for when you see a movie, television show, play
Monica Belluci isn't so much of a secret she is admired all over the world and is known to be more of an international star.
She is beautiful in the classic sense. She is hourglass shaped. Voluptuous and a sturdy stature with a seductive walk that has a rhythm of It’s own but the movement is a catchy tune.
It's like in the past where guys would see one foreign sex symbol in a movie. Take Sophia Loren. See her in a Hollywood movie or Maybe even a foreign one and want to go overseas to find her or someone who resembles her, or when in the service men would talk about the beauty of Foreign women and convince you, you had to go as a rite of passage if not in the service then before or after or during college to sample all overseas had to offer especially the women. A kind of one of a kind totem I. Your life. As I so far have never made it overseas maybe she is my totem of a European romance or lady bombshell that makes me want to travel the seas and seek to find a woman like her or resembles her.
She might be like those foreign restaurants you go to America looking for an authentic cultural experience but you find most are Americanized yet popular, but when you go to an out of the way smaller place not only is the food delicious but you get to experience the authentic culture you so desired.
Though you are reminded these are always fantasies and ideals. That you might choose to judge others on. Though are limiting yourself if you do. Just as you can never lead that big screen life. You are not an action hero. You are not a millionaire playboy who is a superhero. They can inspire by you have to remember reality and real people. Try to find your fantasy in real life and around you. So that you can achieve Might It even be just overseas it might be someone of foreign decent or at least different from you that opens you up to their culture and them usually through your attraction to them. You want to learn more about them. So the tit shows you care and hopefully gets you close to them. Most have a weakness for the exotic the unknown. She could be representative of all that. It's all probably not that deep.
It doesn't have to even be someone of foreign descent it can be just someone who is new to you and you find yourself intrigued by for whatever reason that is where the crush is formed.
Now of course most times these so called crushes are one sided and the title or meaning is how you will find yourself at the end of it crushes but I guess it all depends on what you expect to get out of it or what exactly you want, Expectations
This piece was inspired because I was watching TWIN PEAKS the third season when David lynch not only brought up a name from the past but actually featured her in a cameo and she was playing herself specifically in David Lynch's third season of TWIN PEAKS which isn't surprising as she seems to fit right into his Midwest yet vaguely European dark artistic experimental with beautiful women type view
I remember first seeing her I didn't know her name but she was one of the memorable parts of the movie BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA directed by Francis ford Coppola a faithful rendition of the. Vile that was more gothic romanticized and inspired that had some kinky yet poetic sexual imagery. Now as still a teen so nudity on screen was a bit common but still revelatory and memorable. So when the brides of Frankenstein come on screen and try to sexually seduce Keanu reeves character like sirens in a dream. It is erotic and titilating.
Over the years I have remembered quite a few scenes from the film, Good and bad but that scene was always the first thing that came to mind for a number of years.
While I remember her appearance but only found out it was her well into her international fame. Though it might more have been her first bit role in a more American production.
I believe her actual first role where she got noticed was her turn in the movie THE APARTMENT. Which she is remembered for Being at the center and where she met future husband Vincent Cassel they would be the European brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie before they were even thought to be a couple. Which when I finally saw wasn't amazed by but could see why it was eventually remade in America more stylistically though the cast not as attractive. Which really is the only striking thing about the original and the central idea I guess. As it is a drama that morphs into a mystery with thriller elements. Then back to a romance which sounds more exciting than it actually end up becoming.
I Watched foreign films before her but she and other actresses and filmmakers helped me to be more interested in watching more international cinema and seeking it out.
Though her first films in America were supporting roles in TEARS OF THE SUN as a doctor trying to help and save refuges in Africa and as Gene Hackman's Trophy wife in UNDER SUSPICION . So her only English language films at that point were a niche Oscar caliber drama and a Bruce Willis heroic action film based of of real international crisis.
She even went the indie route in SHE HATE ME the spike lee film that strangely feels like a porn plot fantasy mixed in with some political message. Where she plays a Mobsters daughter who wants to get pregnant but doesn't want to get artificially inseminated wants the old fashioned way with a black man and is a lesbian. So seemed to hit a bunch of indie film cliches all in one shot. Not a big role nor did the film rest in her shoulders. --One of her bigger roles at the time She was also in the movie SHOOT EM UP a film that seemed aimed to test the box office and star potential of Clive Owen in an action film that seemed not to play by the rules and was perfectly happy with that characterization as it plays like a foul mouthed film with an anti-hero that was supposed to be anti everything. And quirky as belluci plays an prostitute but specifically a prostitute who specializes in a breast feeding fetish for her customers. A milk maid of sorts which comes in handy when the hitman at the center of the film is protecting a newborn and needs someone to help babysit and feed it. So that is why he keeps her around and of course for sex later on. Once they become a couple. Though Paul Giamatti is memorable as the villain and the story and action quite unorthodox. Like a big budgeted quirky B-movie. It seemed to be the rarity where she played more of a sexy role. That was meant to broaden her appeal. That seemed to keep her more in the cult dream frame of mind or keeps a limited audience in the United States loyal. Though I am sure brought more international appeal and box office to the film.
This was after She starred in IRREVERSABLE that has a real time rape scene in it and would become her most infamous movie. It is a movie I have stayed away from watching over the years. A s I understand taking on a challenging role, but I just don’t feel too comfortable watching that film not only for that reason but the violence might be a little too harsh for me. As I can stand violence I can tell is fake. Unless it becomes too realistic it bothers and disgusts me. That film has become infamous over the years and might end up being the film she is connected to that will be the most talked about or at least remembered for it being surrounded in controversy. That movie seemed to become another film that was highly noted inn her career and one she might be mostly recognized for dramatically.
What ended up becoming distressing was that it seemed like in the United States. That was always complained about when it came to actresses. She appeared in some stateside films, but was always seen as a jealous wife or an ex-wife someone who used to be coveted but was now obsolete in her husbands eyes. She was the younger suicidal ex-wife of Alan Arkin!!! in THE PRIVATE LIVES OF PIPPA LEE. Who gets pushed to the side for the younger Blake Lively (who no offense doesn't have the sex appeal or set the mind off as much as Monica Belluci) Here playing a woman who gave all of her love to a man only to feel used as she ages. Wasting her youth on someone who only valued her for her appeal and beauty and not for who she was or is. Negating all the things she had done for him over the years. I just remember watching that film and thinking she was stacked and sturdy. Statuesque with irregularities. She seems like she is made of marble and made soft by skin. She has features that many would pay money to process personally.
Next thing you knew. She also played the flirtatious jealous wife in MATRIX RELOADED and MATRIX REVOLUTIONS. Which goes to show you how once you reach a certain age how Hollywood treats you, if you are an actress. Before this her biggest hit movie in America seemed to be a supporting role in the film BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF. A French action film that did surprisingly well in theaters in America I remember seeing it opening weekend at the Zigfield movie theater in New York.
Though really her biggest most successful hit is a film I almost forget she was even in MEL Gibson's PASSION OF THE CHRIST She eventually got more American roles that seems beneath her playing the Evil witch in both THE BROTHER'S GRIMM and THE SORCERER'S APPRENTICE which were both big budgeted Hollywood movies. Not necessarily memorable but they were work and used her dark beauty to their advantage when she wasn't made up to be a crackling cgi demon looking hag. Though before having a grand looking innocence or glamour hiding her truly evil black heartedness
Now keep in mind while America was casting her in has been roles she was still quite striking and sexy and was still playing the temptress and bombshell roles in movies such as HOW MUCH DO YOU LOVE ME? Where usually characters would become obsessed with her beauty and she would always be mysterious.
Personally, I believe her career hit it's peak with the Italian movie, MALENA which Is about a boy in Italy in the 1940's who is coming of age and has a crush/obsession with neighborhood beauty MALENA
We see as he narrates not only his life but the many turns her life takes once her husband is killed in the war and has to fend for herself with lecherous neighborhood men and their wives who brand her a whore when she has done nothing and over the years she changes. Though the boys feelings for her, we do get to see her as innocent, victim and vixen. This movie is poetic and if the role was not written specifically for her. It is inspired as it is a movie about beauty and first love that is never consummated and we see MALENA in reality and in fantasy the roles she plays for not only the boy but the men in their fantasies and how the women see her and what she eventually must succumb to, to survive. It's an amazing performance about the curse and pleasures of beauty and what it instilled in people. Think the movie BLACK BOOK without the intrigue. As she does have a memorable punish by down slide. It is a movie I highly recommend.
Now of course it isn't shocking that the film was made by Giuseppe Torrante who later cast her in a supporting role in his movie BAARIA over a decade later. In his films they are not only nostalgic but add brutal reality to their truth. Though like the books of Gabriel Garcia Marquez (100 YEARS OF SOLITUDE) have a magical realism that shows not only passion but feeling and mood. So that you almost feel like you are watching a confessional you can relate too. So that her and this film feels more like a testimony to her and her talents as much as in her beauty. It is the film that truly shows her not only as an actress but offers up evidence and essence of a movie star. Just check out Torrante’s film CINEMA PARADISO his ode to the magic of cinema. His follow-up THE STARMAKER is a romance that involves the promise of stardom and peoples dreams a con man capturing it to survive. A natural salesman he eventually finds love but doesn’t realize it until it seems too late
MALENA seemed to be her calling card. It’s a film that truly immortalizes her. Where she became an international sex symbol unless you were a foreign film fan you might have seen glimpses of her but she never became specifically famous. Her name never carried as much star power as Salma Hayek. Who gets to play varied roles and started off more as a sex symbol. Though she has a niche. Salma still gets high profile roles that challenge the public’s interpretation as an actress.
You can see her now here and there. In the television series MOZART IN THE JUNGLE and playing a widow and conquest in the last James Bond film SPECTRE. Where she should have played more of a James Bond final girl in her previous years. She still looked captivating enough to play that type of role. Which is interesting as I always wished to see her play in more action film roles though more as the temptress or the villains right hand woman/wife. I would have loved to see her play an action heroine at least once.
Though truly would love to see her have gotten a chance to play more the femme fatales in more noir type films. She played plenty of temptresses but only a few fatales.
So as you can see she has had a varied career it just never seems that she got the proper respect as an actress or a star. You can easily say she got these roles because of her looks, but it proves you aren't looking deep enough. At first sure but over the years she has proven her talent past the roles she has mainly been cast in. She still manages to charm and bring a certain glitter to the eye.
All of this to say. I am a big fan and she is one of the actresses who of in a cast of a film I am immediately more interested and only wish she would have gotten a chance to become a movie star along the same stature of Penelope Cruz or Salma Hayek. Though she carved a certain cube that lets her be a screen goddess for those in the know. She is more a well kept secret that makes it more of a treat for those of us who know about her and recognize her before she could ever become capitalized and oversaturated.
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