Costume History Class

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The History of Fashion and Dress /
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Email me: jlc5f@virginia.edu

Assignment: Review Costume Movie: Dangerous Beauty (1998)

Dangerous Beauty (1998), was directed by Marshall Herskovitz. It stars Catherine McCormack in the lead, Rufus Sewell, Oliver Pratt, Moira Kelly, Fred Ward, and Jacqueline Bissett. The movie has a R- rating, for strong sexuality, very sensual scenes of nudity, and language. Based on the book, "The Honest Courtesan". Theoretically, this is a true story.

The movie begins in 1583, in Venice. Veronica Franco is a girl of the middle class - apparently her mother was a courtesan, and her father drank the family fortune away, leaving the family with no one to support them. She falls in love with Marco, one of the "Senators" of Venice, but they cannot marry for he must marry for reasons of state. The basic theme of the movie is, how can Veronica and Marco live happily ever after? Veronica becomes a courtesan - the best, in fact, in all of Venice. She reads, writes skillful poetry, socializes with the men of the highest classes, persuades King Henry of France to aid Venice by means of her womanly wiles, lives through the plague, and is tried as a witch by the Inquisition. As the movie ends, Veronica and Marco return to each others arms, to live long lives as lovers.

I think the style of the film is "generic medieval" - most of the costumes look like they are probably from around the 14th century, with some other periods thrown in for good measure. Since this was a movie about courtesans, I suspect there are a lot of fantasy costumes too. Since the story was about a professional sex worker, the clothing had to be provocative, which it was. The women's clothing, particularly in the early scenes, were a combination of the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries in combination -- including corsets, natural waistlines, 3/4 length tight sleeves, the puffy slit sleeve caps and tight sleeves, and bare shoulders. Most of the fullness was created from the draping of the fabric rather than farthingales or padding. The true 16th century Italian style, i.e., long puffy sleeves, a waistline higher than the true waist, high necklines (or square necklines filled in with linen, was reserved for older women, or the conservative younger women. Also, although ruffs were "in" in late 16th century Italy, again only the older, conservative women wore ruffs in the movie. I guess the director just didn't think the 16th century Italian costumes were sexy!

The men wore dublets that looked 15th century, with slitting and puffing and all that sort of thing, but wore them with slim fitting breeches and leather trousers (sort of 18th century), rather than the knee-length loose-fitting pants of the 16th century Italian, or the pumpkin pants of the 16th century Englishman. They wore loose shirts, rather in the 14th century style, with lace decoration around the collar and wrists. Although the late 16th century Italian men wore ruffs, these costumes usually just had lace on the edges of the collar, or very short standing collars with pleated fabric. The clerical costumes looked to be fairly accurate, and the doge had the distinctive cap and cape of his office.

What really bothered me about these costumes:

Medieval spandex! The stockings fit too closely to the legs, and there were no ties for garters or other means of holding the stockings up. But there was an elastic band at the top which looked like thigh high stockings you buy in t
he store.
Courtesan legs. The courtesans were going around in dresses with the front gathered up above their knees. Now, they may have been courtesans, but wouldn't the better sort of courtesans dress in the current fashion, rather than dress like a common streetwalker? Who knows -- I couldn't find any pictures of Venetian courtesans!
Women in breeches, and riding astride. The heroine not only wore these open-front dresses, but also men's breeches to ride astride, not side-saddle. I don't know when the side-saddle was invented, but I believe that the Church considered women dressing in men's clothing to be anathema.
Medieval velcro. The way that girl was taking off clothing, she had to have velcro fasteners. The only time she made a big show of untying her bodice, it was to make the point that she was inexperienced at this sort of thing, because she got it knotted up and her more experienced lover helped her "out" of it.

I actually enjoyed this movie, but it was really painted very black and white. Maybe I'm not enough of a romantic. The bad guys (the high class, conservative wives) wore black and high necklines, the neutral guys (the men who were all at Veronica's beck and call) wore neutral medieval, and good guys (the courtesans) were all dressed in lovely, bright colors, rich fabrics, and flashy jewels. Maybe that's what the director wanted.

(rev. 2//20/01 - JLC)

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