Imperial Venus

Film is one source where Romance can be studied and emulated. I will start regularly posting here movies which I feel are the epitome of Romance. The honored first will be Imperial Venus which is a Franco-Italian endeavor produced in 1963. Its' original name is Venere Imperiale, and on this Italian link some photos and short information about the film are presented.

Imperial Venus starred Gina Lollobridgida (the second in the pair of Italian bombshells the other of whom was Sophia Loren) and Stephen Boyd, an Irish actor who is best remembered as Massala in the Academy Award winning Biblical epic Ben Hur. Imperial Venus is the story of Napoleon Bonaparte's younger and favorite sister Pauline. Pauline was one the great beauties of her day. She was also greatly known for her love affairs and extravagant, nonconformist behavior. Napoleon loved her dearly, but he like many men of his generation and culture believed in a double standard. He could conduct affairs, but he was scandalized by his sister's behavior and tried to get her to tone down and stop making so much noise.

Pauline was married twice. Being the rebel, she scandalized her second husband Camillo Borghese , an Italian prince, and society by having two nearly nude statues of herself made by the sculptor Antonio Canova.

Canova's stature of Pauline as Venus Victrix (Venus the Conqueror)

Unlike the other hanger-ons around Napoleon during his glory days which included his other brothers and sisters, Pauline turned out to be one of the few who stood by Napoleon after his downfall. She even stayed with him during his first exile on the island of Elba and helped to run his court there. Pauline died four years after Napoleon at the age of 44 of cancer, the same disease that carried him away. She was a mass of contradictions: beautiful, erotic, rebellious, selfish, generous, unfaithful, child-like, flamboyant, and loyal. She was a true Romantic.

Gina Lollobridgida plays Pauline in Imperial Venus. The movie is not an excellent film, but it has some unique moments and dialogue. The costuming is beautiful and authentic. The film begins in Marseille, France where Pauline and her family are living as poor Corsican exiles. Napoleon Bonaparte and his family were not French, but Corsicans whose first language was Italian. Pauline is already showing her rebellious, adventurous streak as a teenager which a mature Lollobrigida plays and tries hard to pull off. But enter Napoleon who already at 25 is a general in the French army. He has plans for France AND his entire family even though he is not the eldest. He usurps his elder brother Joseph's role as head of the family. A man whom Pauline wants to marry is deemed not good enough by Napoleon for his sister who must rise up along with the rest of the family to create the dynasty which Napoleon already envisions. The film stops just before Napoleon gets ready to go into his first exile on Elba. The final scene of the movie shows Pauline holding and comforting her elder brother, the once great Emperor of the French and master of Europe.

Imperial Venus was created in response to French and Italian audiences who viewed with distaste the New Wave movement in film in France and of the time. These people obviously had a Romantic spirit and did not really care for excessive, stark, and bleak realism. They loved refinement and escape, like myself.

Though not a Romantic masterpiece, Imperial Venus is escapism on a good level. I was able to locate it on Google Video last year and paid $3.99 to download it. I looked for it yesterday, but I could not find it. I loved the movie's score so much that I bought the soundtrack from Amazon. Click on this link to listen to excepts from the soundtrack.

Gina Lollobridgida is lovely as Pauline, and Stephen Boyd is handsome and playful as Jules de Canouville, her lover and an officer whom once again Napoleon does not allow her to marry.

Imperial Venus is well worth watching with someone you love.

An Expat Romantic Artist

Ali "Lee" Shahroudi is an Iranian American artist who currently resides in Istanbul, Turkey. He is also a friend and a former colleague having taught English as a second language with me at the now defunct Interlang language school which was located on Istiklal Caddesi ("caddesi" is Turkish for "street") in Istanbul. A Turkish journalist wrote about Istiklal in this rather morbid but true post in his blog last week: The Avenue of Chaos and Life .

But getting back to my friend Lee. I did not know that Lee was an artist until an evening in mid-March when I was about leave Istanbul to come back to the states. While we teachers were hanging out at the school waiting to collect our pay, I learned from Lee that not only had he majored in art, but he has also had some work on exhibit in Europe. The picture above was taken while we were waiting around at Interlang. Lee mentioned Germany in particular as a place where his work has been exhibited. I was very surprised by Lee's revelation because I had minored in drawing and painting at The University of Georgia in the 1980s. I did not develop my talent like Lee has done, but I still draw from time to time. Nevertheless, the desire to paint and draw is buried inside me waiting to come out in full bloom if I can ever get into the right relaxed mood and in a beautiful enough location that can inspire me. Places like Europe are excellent for writing and art.

A couple days before Thanksgiving, Lee e-mailed me with his new website showcasing some of his art: Expromantic. Lee says that his art is a combination of the Romantic and Expressionistic styles. Much of the painting I did as a university student was Expressionistic too. I used to love using very bright and lively colors. I had not taken up a paint brush in years until 2005 when my both my grandmother and her son, my uncle, were dying. I decided to relax my mind and try to escape for a few hours by taking a painting class.

I really like Lee's work. When I learned that he was an artist, I was very curious to know what kind of painting he did. When he sent me his website, I was honored that he thought enough of me to share his talent. His work is indeed Romantic and Expressionistic.

Love In the Time of the War on Terror

In the last four years despite everything the second war in Iraq has not stopped the innate need by the people there to seek love and Romance. Marriages are still conducted there regularly unlike here where marriage and Romance in some quarters have basically died. At the present time, the slaughter has slowed down perhaps because of the surge or maybe the desire for and enjoyment of killing has wound down somewhat. Let's hope that things continue to simmer down, and Iraq can right itself.

During the bloodiest phase of the war, I marvelled at stories of Iraqis trying to conduct their lives with as much normalcy as possible. Back in the spring, CNN presented a news story one afternoon about young Iraqi students at the University of Baghdad who spoke of their dreams of becoming professors, diplomats, or doctors even though the bombs were falling in the background, even though some of their professors, friends, and family had perished in the charnal house that Iraq had become. These young people who dressed so well and looked so cute and scrubbed, went to class each day unsure if they might be killed on their way to school or coming back. Some of them said they felt extreme worry for their homes and family whenever they heard bombs and mortars in the distance. What might they find when they arrived home?

I was aspired to become a blogger because of an Iraqi blogger whose pseudonym is Riverbend and whose blog Baghdad Burning has won awards and been published in two volumes which can be purchased on Amazon. This year Riverbend joined the mass of over 2 million Iraqi refugees who have fled to Syria and Jordan. She and her family now live in Syria. I have silently wept for the Iraqi people since the war began, and for the terrible injustice done to them. On my fourth excursion to Turkey, I was befriended by a young Iraqi woman and her family who were taking Turkish classes along with me. Their mother was Turkish and lived with them in Istanbul, but their Iraqi father was still in Baghdad. I have prayed for the innocents over there to be vindicated some how and that someday Riverbend and many others can come back to the country they love and miss so much.

Last summer I found a touching article on Time.com about an Iraqi couple who met and fell in love. Their love story is unusual in the tragedy of Iraq, a once great and proud country that over the centuries has repeatedly been eyed and invaded because of its' location and resources. This year, Iraqis have faced cholera, so for those looking for love or already in love, it has become love in the time of cholera too. But love is a very strong emotion. Where ever there is Romance, lets hope that the old adage can still apply that love conquers all. Read Romance, Baghdad Style .

One of the Ultimate Romantic Gestures: The Kiss! No. 2

Instead of posting a written kissing technique, I decided to present a visual post of Romantic smooching techniques by The Master. The silent screen star and the world's first sex symbol Rudolph Valentino was the sex god of 1920s Hollywood. He was The Latin Lover, the erotic and the exotic. Without disrobing and actually making love onscreen, the man's movements and behavior set the sexually repressed American female's imagination of the time on fire. Even today over 80 years after his death he still can light a few fires. How Valentino danced, moved, and kissed was tantament to actual sex for many fans. His tango dance moves were considered indecent by some. Rudy's actual love life was really not as steamy as that depicted by his characters on film. He was rejected by both of his two wives. He never saw himself as a real sex symbol or as being extraordinarily handsome as his female fans viewed him. About his appeal he once said:

"Women are not in love with me but with the picture of me on the screen. I am merely the canvas on which women paint their dreams."

Poor Rudy! So desired by millions of female fans he did not know, but so unlucky in love in his own personal life. His first wife locked him out their bedroom on their wedding night! Valentino did not know that she was a lesbian. His second wife left him weeping at the pier!

Embedding was not allowed on this of Valentino, so here is the link:
Rudolph Valentino--Tango Kisses

There is no French kissing here, but I think Rudy's kisses is rather more Romantic and erotic than that sort of lip locking. Look, listen, and learn from The Master!

Oh! If you look closely, at times his hand does slip. However, the object of his kisses and embrace does not flinch. I wouldn't either. ;)