By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com
Non-gratuitous Bellucci: a visit with the nude one
“With his trim grey beard and pipe forever clamped between his teeth, [Bertrand] Blier, now in his mid-sixties, cuts a professorial figure as he directs his actors perched on a wooden box, instead of the usual chair (he has a bad back),” The Observer’s Mark Salisbury observes as he gets closer to profile subject Monica Bellucci. Blier “wrote the part of Daniela especially for Bellucci after seeing her in Irreversible, in which her character was graphically raped in an underpass in one horrific, nine-minute unbroken take. ‘He told me, “Monica, I was so touched by the movie, I was inspired by you and I wrote this character for you.” I said, “What kind of character?” And he said, “It’s a whore.”‘ She emits a wry laugh at the recollection. ‘I said, “Is that a compliment?”‘ Apparently it was. She said yes before even reading the script. ‘He told me the story and I felt something.'” … Blier was impressed by how comfortable Bellucci is with her own body.
‘She’s completely relaxed with her image and with her own sense of modesty as well. Because she is so free and proud of being a woman and proud of her femininity, she has no problem with the fact that men look at her and desire her, and that is rare today with women.’… Nudity, she says, doesn’t bother her, providing it’s not gratuitous. ‘I’m not scared by nudity, because for me, nothing is more beautiful than a body. You can have such an amazing emotion from a body. In Irreversible, I treated my body like it was an object and it’s great when you can have this kind of relation with your body, it’s a part of your job, an object you can work with.” [More at the link.]