Stealing Beauty (1996)

Stealing Beauty
Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci

After her mother commits suicide, nineteen year old Lucy Harmon travels to Italy to have her picture painted. However, she has other reasons for wanting to go. She wants to renew her acquaintance with Nicolo Donati, a young boy with whom she fell in love on her last visit four years ago. She also is trying tosolve the riddle left in a diary written by her dead mother, Sara. Written by Kale Whorton

For 20 years many visitors have come to the villa on an Italian hilltop owned by an English artist. Lucy, a 19-year-old American, was last there four years ago and wants to meet up again with the young Italian who kissed her and corresponded for a while. And she has brought the diary of her late mother filled with enigmatic poems that suggest Lucy was conceived on that hilltop. Lucy wants to find out if Daddy is the Italian war correspondent who wrote to her mother for 20 years. Then again Daddy could be the dying English playwright in residence or the artist who uses a chainsaw on tree trunks for his sculptures. The three, of course, have no idea that Lucy is there to solve a mystery. They, the artist's wife, daughter of that wife and the daughter's American lover are most intrigued by Lucy's virginity. Written by Dale O'Connor

Lucy Harmon is a 19-year old American girl who is the daughter of poet Sara Harmon. After Sara commits suicide, Lucy travels to Italty and visits her mother's friends, Diana and her husband, Irish artist Ian, where Lucy wants a picture of her painted. Lucy decided to return to Italy to reunite with Nicolo Donati, a Italian boy she once fell in love with four years ago, when she last visited Italy. But reuniting with Nicolo isn't the only reason why Lucy decided to return to Italy, Lucy is on a personal journey, as she sets out to solve a mystery in her Mother's diary and discover who her father is who conceived her 20 years ago. Lucy's journey leads her to befriend Alex, a play-writer who is dying of cancer whom Lucy thinks may be her father or her father could be the artist who makes statutes from trees and sets out to loose her virginity as Diana and her daughter Miranda's boyfriend Richard become intrigued by her. Written by

Three Poems:

The three poems we see Lucy (Liv Tyler) compose while in Italy are: - 1. I have her secret deep within for years I've had to hide I've bought the clues And now I'm hope To bring the truth outside - 2. I wait I wait so patiently I'm as quiet as a cup I hope you'll come and rattle me Quick! Come wake me up. - 3. The dye is cast The dice are rolled I feel like shit you look like gold.

Director: Bernardo Bertolucci


Writer: Bernardo Bertolucci (story) Susan Minot (writer)


Release Date: 14 June 1996 (USA)


Genre: Drama; Romance


Tagline: The most beautiful place to be is in love.