Dangerous Beauty (1998)

Catherine McCormack: Veronica Franco

Photos 

Quotes 

• Veronica Franco : I confess that as a young girl I loved a man who would not marry me for want of a dowry. I confess I had a mother who taught me a different way of life, one I resisted at first but learned to embrace. I confess I became a courtesan, traded yearning for power, welcomed many rather than be owned by one... I confess I embraced a whore's freedom over a wife's obedience... I confess I find more ecstacy in passion than in prayer. Such passion is prayer. I confess - I confess I pray still to feel the touch of my lover's lips, his hands upon me, his arms enfolding me... . Such surrender has been mine. I confess I hunger still to be filled and enflamed. To melt into the dream of us, beyond this troubled place, to where we are not even ourselves. To know that always, always, this is mine... If this had not been mine - if I had lived any other way - a child to her husband's whim, my soul hardened from lack of touch and lack of love. I confess such endless days and nights would be a punishment far greater than you could ever mete out... You, all of you, you who hunger so for what I give but cannot bear to see that kind of power in a woman. You call God's greatest gift: our selves, our yearning, our need to love - you call it filth and sin and heresy... I repent there was no other way open to me. I do not repent my life.

• Giulia De Lezze : Go on, ask her. Ask her what you're longing to. Ask her what draws our husbands back to her - again and again - like pigs to a trough!

  Veronica Franco : [peeling a banana]  The Latin for banana is arienna. Banana tree is pala.

  [swallows the banana whole, as the wives look on shocked] 

  Veronica Franco : A woman's greatest, and most hard-won asset - is an education.

  Giulia De Lezze : Just because you can say it in Latin doesn't make it any less obscene.

  Veronica Franco : Just because you took a vow doesn't mean you know how to love.

• Veronica Franco : Why, Marco Venier, I do believe you're jealous.

  Marco Venier : One could only be jealous of what one cannot have.

  Veronica Franco : And you cannot have me.

  Marco Venier : There's not a woman in Venice I can't have.

  Veronica Franco : And there's not a man in Venice that I can't have.

• Veronica Franco : You... all of you... you who hunger so for what I give, but cannot bear to see such power in a woman. You call God's greatest gift... ourselves, our yearning, our need to love... you call it filth and sin and heresy.

• Paola Franco : [standing next to a young nude man]  If you touch - here.

  Veronica Franco : Amazing.

  Paola Franco : Use your fingers lightly, like feathers. Then harder. Your tongue, like licking sweets. Your teeth with restraint. Just enough - to keep him wanting more. It's wanting - that keeps us alive.

• Marco Venier : You must save yourself.

  Veronica Franco : How?

  Marco Venier : Confess... whatever foolishness they put before you...

  Veronica Franco : That I am a witch?

  Marco Venier : What does it matter what you say to these hypocrites?

  Veronica Franco : I would be saying it.

  Marco Venier : There is no honor with fools like these. God will forgive you.

  Veronica Franco : Marco, if I give them my lie, I give them my soul. I'll lose everything I ever was. My love, my words, my heart.

  Marco Venier : Yes, but you would live.

  Veronica Franco : As someone else.

• Maffio Venier : May sing, and rhyme, and more. Still, is at best a slut, With every horny mutt! You pride yourself on arts and letters, and fucking best your manly betters!

  Veronica Franco : I save the goodly wives of Venice from their husbands' lustful menace!

• Maffio Venier : You compel sacred love to garner riches. What is this if not witchcraft?

  Veronica Franco : No!

  Maffio Venier : No? Did you ever give yourself to a man who could not pay your fee?

  Veronica Franco : I gave my heart where riches were no use.

  Maffio Venier : Answer the question!

  Veronica Franco : I did what was necessary to live!

  Maffio Venier : Did you ever give yourself to a man who could not pay your fee?

  Veronica Franco : What other profession will you allow me? How shall I survive if I cannot marry?

  Bolognetti : You will answer the question!

  Veronica Franco : Why, when you are determined to damn me whatever. I say?

• Maffio Venier : Personally, I didn't think Uncle was still capable of getting it up. What did you do to him to get him to publish this little of ditties.

  Marco Venier : She worked for it.

  Maffio Venier : Ha, I bet she did. How much do you cost these days Veronica?

  Veronica Franco : If your prick is as limp as your verse, no price can buy time enough.

• Marco Venier : Do you not like my kiss?

  Veronica Franco : I wish it were not a sin to have liked it so.

  Marco Venier : God made sin, though we might know his mercy.

• Marco Venier : I'm getting married Veronica. Congratulate me.

  Veronica Franco : Felicitations on your grand match.

• Veronica Franco : My people are true citizens 700 years back.

  Marco Venier : A coat of arms does not an inheritance make.

• Veronica Franco : I confess I *fuck* divinely those who love and well opine me.

  Maffio Venier : [mocking her]  I confess I fuck divinely, Those who richly wine and dine me

• Veronica Franco : Recant the curse you give my kind. Admit I have, as you, a heart and mind.

  Maffio Venier : A greedy hand, an empty heart is all that wrests your legs apart.

• Veronica Franco : You sleep with Giulia every night for duty's sake. I slept with the King of France once for duty's sake. Who does not forgive?

  Marco Venier : Perhaps I just can't live with it.

  Veronica Franco : But I love you.

• Veronica Franco : [after her first time, with a lustful expression on her face]  Who's next?

• Veronica Franco : What do you yearn for, King Henry?

  King Henry : [He holds a dagger at her throat]  You've heard the rumors, Veronica?

  Veronica Franco : Yes, sire.

  King Henry : The king's a pervert.

  Veronica Franco : What do you really yearn for, King Henry?

  King Henry : Tears.

  Veronica Franco : Tears for whom?

  King Henry : Your tears.

  Veronica Franco : You yearn for my tears? I don't think so.

  King Henry : Then what do I yearn for?

  Veronica Franco : [She takes the dagger from him slowly, then points it at his neck]  Why don't we find out?

• Veronica Franco : If I were yours alone, your property, chaste and silent, you would soon tire of me.

  Marco Venier : You're wrong!

  Veronica Franco : Am I?

• Veronica Franco : I think you mistake me for one of your easy court companions?

  Marco Venier : No, no I mistook the asking in your eyes.

• Beatrice Venier : When my daughter is old enough, I want you to make her a courtesan.

  Veronica Franco : I will not pimp your daughter.

  Beatrice Venier : Look at the life you live! The freedom that you have. Will you deny my daughter the same chance?

• Veronica Franco : How do people marry, Mother?

  Paola Franco : They strike a bargain.

  Veronica Franco : What's to bargain over if you're in love?

  Paola Franco : Marriage is a contract, not a perpetual tryst.

• [first lines] 

  Veronica Franco : We danced our youth in a dreamed-of city. Venice. Paradise. Proud and pretty We lived for love and lust and beauty. Pleasure then our only duty. Floating then 'twixt heaven and earth. And drunk on plenty's blessed mirth. We thought ourselves eternal then. Our glory sealed by God's own pen. But paradise we found is always frail. Against man's fear will always fail.

• Marco Venier : I think I've missed you.

  Veronica Franco : With all the court ladies to amuse you?

  Marco Venier : Roman women, they can't hold a candle to the Venetian. Nor can French, nor can Florentine, nor can any woman from Europe to the Levant.

  Veronica Franco : No doubt you've sampled them all.

  Marco Venier : All but idle amusement until you blossomed.

• Veronica Franco : How could they?

  Marco Venier : How could who what?

  Veronica Franco : Your parents marry your sister off to that piece of decaying flesh.

  Marco Venier : That piece of decaying flesh is a cousin of the doge, confidant of the pope. The Roman court adores him.

  Veronica Franco : The Roman court doesn't have to sleep with him.

  Marco Venier : Oh, you'd be surprised.

• Marco Venier : I bought this in Rome for you.

  Veronica Franco : You didn't buy it for me.

  Marco Venier : Yes, I did. I just didn't know it.

• Marco Venier : I think perhaps you're too young - to accept what I would - truly give you.

  Veronica Franco : I am not so young as you are vain.

• Marco Venier : Marriage isn't romantic. That's why God invented poetry.

  Veronica Franco : To sweeten men's lying lips!

• Veronica Franco : Mother, we can't go in there.

  Paola Franco : Ladies can't go in there. Courtesans can.

• Paola Franco : Daughter, you have reached too high. I told you, marriage is a contract. Two countries signing a treaty. To a man of Marco's station, it has nothing to do with love. But, you can still have Marco. But not in wedlock. There's an alternative to marriage. You'll become a courtesan - like your mother used to be.

  Veronica Franco : You were a courtesan?

  Paola Franco : One of the best.

• Maffio Venier : Must be interesting being in a room full of men, most of whom you've seen with their pants down.

  Veronica Franco : Puts it all in some kind of perspective.

• Veronica Franco : Venice, mother, virgin, queen, and goddess, To be all five at once is no mean trick, If women's lust lost Eden, Our redress to be, Hearth, heart and home to every - prick.

• Marco Venier : You confuse indifference with honesty.

  Veronica Franco : You confuse honesty with venality.

  Marco Venier : You think me venal?

  Veronica Franco : You are a venal cur.

• Marco Venier : Did you enjoy the hunt?

  Veronica Franco : Well, the hunt possesses, doesn't it, such a cruel beauty?

  Marco Venier : Much like your own.

  Veronica Franco : Is my beauty cruel?

  Marco Venier : Oh, I think so. To those that you refuse, yes.

  Veronica Franco : It is only my refusal that arouses your longing.

• Veronica Franco : On the page or on the sheet, You'll never find a tongue more sweet.

• Veronica Franco : Do not ask of me what you cannot give yourself. Your wife is waiting.

• Veronica Franco : Recant the curse you give my kind, Admit I have, as you, a heart and mind.

  Maffio Venier : A greedy hand, an empty heart, Is all that wrests your legs apart.

• Maffio Venier : For what did they pay you?

  Veronica Franco : For the dream of love - as it cannot exist in this world that you've created.

• Veronica Franco : My cage seems bigger than yours, but it's still a cage.

  Beatrice Venier : If you want sympathy from me, you won't get it.

  Veronica Franco : I don't want your sympathy.

• Maffio Venier : Tell us, how many of the worthy men of this city have you taken into your chamber?

  Veronica Franco : I have not counted my lovers.

  Maffio Venier : More than 20?

  Bolognetti : You will answer the question.

  Veronica Franco : Yes.

  Maffio Venier : More than 100?

  Veronica Franco : I don't know.

  Maffio Venier : You cannot remember them? Yet for each you paraded your milky breast and hair of spun copper. For each you learned his unique favored touch and enchanted him to believe he was the only man in the universe. What was the average number in a single week?

  Veronica Franco : I told you. I enchanted no one.