To call Dangerous Beauty an adaptation of Margaret Rosenthal's The Honest Courtesan is beyond insulting to Ms. Rosenthal it's bewildering, quite frankly. The Veronica Franco depicted in Rosenthal's rather scholarly and unsentimental biography was a feminist heroine and a rather unusual figure for her or any time. Veronica Franco in Herskowitz's pretty romance novel is anything but a feminist heroine, for all the Lifetime channel rhetoric.
First, a few historical corrections. According to Ms. Rosenthal's scholarship, Franco's meeting with Henri III (then King of Poland, not yet of France and not there at request of the Doge) was more important to her poetry than Venetian politics or her sex life, her trial before the inquisition was quite different, her relationship with the Veniers was far more professional and her life in general was far less dependent on men, let alone a man. Henri III was traveling through Venice when Franco entertained him at her home and may well have slept with her. However, the relationship seemed more courtly than sexual Franco even gave him gifts on his departure, two sonnets and a miniature. What Rosenthal remarks on are the sonnets she wrote in tribute to Henri in true (masculine) court style and the likelihood that Franco was trying to collaborate with other poets on a book in the future King of France's honor. Franco's poems on the event were courtier's poems and not love poems; in fact, she pulled of the rather difficult task of using the story of Jupiter and Danae as a model for her poems and undermining the eroticism her contemporaries (men) highlighted when using that myth. Franco often reclaimed overly sexualized female figures and made them into civic, public figures a pity that Herskowitz and script writer Dominy do the reverse to Franco.
Franco's trial before the inquisition wasn't the maudlin thing it was in the movie, either. It wasn't even public and her accuser was a disgruntled and unpaid tutor, claiming she participated in rituals and other rites in her house. Veronica got out of it basically by admitting to allowing her servants to have these rituals and participating in them at times, but she never believed in it and it wasn't a sin or demonic if one didn't believe in it. She was hardly the only person to be pulled before the inquisition at the time Domenico Venier, her patron, was also brought before the inquisition because of a servant. Rather than having to defend her sexual behavior, she was in the position many men found themselves in. Their financial or employment practices irked a servant and the servant accused them of heresy. Unsexy as it is, Veronica's trial could be more easily compared to Martha Stewart's trial than to the sentimental theatrics in Herskowitz's film.
Historically speaking, there is no reason to believe that Marco and Veronica were as close as the film shows. They were friends and fellow poets with great respect for the each other's work, certainly, and quite possibly lovers. Veronica had many lovers, though, and she did not ride off to some 'happily ever after' with Marco at all. There were other lovers she seemed to be more passionate about, including those who fathered some of her children, also left out of the film.
So, as a historical drama it fails because it ignores historical fact and I think it fails even more as a feminist revision. I don't think Franco's story needs any revisionism to be feminist, and certainly not of this kind. When the heroine is more than happy to commit herself entirely to a man who has no qualms about publicly humiliating a wife who never injured him and sees nothing wrong with demanding Veronica's fidelity without offering his own, I can't consider her a feminist role model. When a film cheerfully sets up a dichotomy between the sexually adventurous but ultimately submissive mistress and the frigid, demanding wife, I can't call the film exactly a paragon of feminist values, especially when the mistress wins out. Why was there no sympathy for Guilia, who seemed quite unhappy with her lot and had no way out? Why no pretty speech about perpetual inconsequence for her, especially when she's the one is consigned to that more than any of the others. Apparently, if a woman isn't ready to be cheerfully sexually accessible to a man who can afford her, she doesn't deserve decent and respectful treatment from her husband. How this is a liberating message escapes me.
The only level this film does work is as a guilty pleasure, and on that level it's fantastic. The cast is pretty, the set is pretty, the costumes are pretty, the music is pretty (if a bit sentimental and overpowering) and if you don't think about it too hard, it's a nice fairy tale. Had they not tried to base this on real people and had they deleted the ridiculous, Maxim-friendly just-do-me-feminism, it would have been a satisfying romance novel of a film. However, in trying to give this substance, they made it at best vaguely offensive.
First, a few historical corrections. According to Ms. Rosenthal's scholarship, Franco's meeting with Henri III (then King of Poland, not yet of France and not there at request of the Doge) was more important to her poetry than Venetian politics or her sex life, her trial before the inquisition was quite different, her relationship with the Veniers was far more professional and her life in general was far less dependent on men, let alone a man. Henri III was traveling through Venice when Franco entertained him at her home and may well have slept with her. However, the relationship seemed more courtly than sexual Franco even gave him gifts on his departure, two sonnets and a miniature. What Rosenthal remarks on are the sonnets she wrote in tribute to Henri in true (masculine) court style and the likelihood that Franco was trying to collaborate with other poets on a book in the future King of France's honor. Franco's poems on the event were courtier's poems and not love poems; in fact, she pulled of the rather difficult task of using the story of Jupiter and Danae as a model for her poems and undermining the eroticism her contemporaries (men) highlighted when using that myth. Franco often reclaimed overly sexualized female figures and made them into civic, public figures a pity that Herskowitz and script writer Dominy do the reverse to Franco.
Franco's trial before the inquisition wasn't the maudlin thing it was in the movie, either. It wasn't even public and her accuser was a disgruntled and unpaid tutor, claiming she participated in rituals and other rites in her house. Veronica got out of it basically by admitting to allowing her servants to have these rituals and participating in them at times, but she never believed in it and it wasn't a sin or demonic if one didn't believe in it. She was hardly the only person to be pulled before the inquisition at the time Domenico Venier, her patron, was also brought before the inquisition because of a servant. Rather than having to defend her sexual behavior, she was in the position many men found themselves in. Their financial or employment practices irked a servant and the servant accused them of heresy. Unsexy as it is, Veronica's trial could be more easily compared to Martha Stewart's trial than to the sentimental theatrics in Herskowitz's film.
Historically speaking, there is no reason to believe that Marco and Veronica were as close as the film shows. They were friends and fellow poets with great respect for the each other's work, certainly, and quite possibly lovers. Veronica had many lovers, though, and she did not ride off to some 'happily ever after' with Marco at all. There were other lovers she seemed to be more passionate about, including those who fathered some of her children, also left out of the film.
So, as a historical drama it fails because it ignores historical fact and I think it fails even more as a feminist revision. I don't think Franco's story needs any revisionism to be feminist, and certainly not of this kind. When the heroine is more than happy to commit herself entirely to a man who has no qualms about publicly humiliating a wife who never injured him and sees nothing wrong with demanding Veronica's fidelity without offering his own, I can't consider her a feminist role model. When a film cheerfully sets up a dichotomy between the sexually adventurous but ultimately submissive mistress and the frigid, demanding wife, I can't call the film exactly a paragon of feminist values, especially when the mistress wins out. Why was there no sympathy for Guilia, who seemed quite unhappy with her lot and had no way out? Why no pretty speech about perpetual inconsequence for her, especially when she's the one is consigned to that more than any of the others. Apparently, if a woman isn't ready to be cheerfully sexually accessible to a man who can afford her, she doesn't deserve decent and respectful treatment from her husband. How this is a liberating message escapes me.
The only level this film does work is as a guilty pleasure, and on that level it's fantastic. The cast is pretty, the set is pretty, the costumes are pretty, the music is pretty (if a bit sentimental and overpowering) and if you don't think about it too hard, it's a nice fairy tale. Had they not tried to base this on real people and had they deleted the ridiculous, Maxim-friendly just-do-me-feminism, it would have been a satisfying romance novel of a film. However, in trying to give this substance, they made it at best vaguely offensive.