It must be a wondrous thing to be the lard king of Genoa and I would have wished Casanova time to quiz Papprizzio about his lofty estate, but the Inquisition is fed up with Casanova's flaunting of morality and appoints Pucci (Jeremy Irons) to apprehend and imprison him. By this time Casanova has grown somewhat weary, although when he resumes his real-life Autobiography it still has eight more volumes of tireless lubricity ahead.
As I watched the film, I kept having flash-forwards, or were they flash-sidewayses, to the forthcoming film, "The Libertine," in which Johnny Depp plays a Casanova wannabe who spends so much time sticking his nose into other people's business that it eventually falls off and has to be replaced by a silver one.
I also had flashbacks, to "Dangerous Beauty" (1998), a film about romance and Venice that is so much better than "Casanova" that you might as well just go ahead and rent it. Catherine McCormick stars as a woman who is forced by circumstances to become a courtesan, and so convincingly entertains King Henry of France that he saves Venice from the Turkish fleet.
I quote from my review:
"What do you yearn for, King Henry?'' asks Veronica. "Your tears,'' he says, pressing a knife to her throat. "I don't think so,'' she says, and a shadow of doubt crosses his face. "Then what do I yearn for?'' he asks. She graces him with a cold smile: "Why don't we find out?'' Cut to the next morning, as the Doge and other nobles nervously await the king's reappearance. He emerges, settles himself somewhat painfully on a cushion, and says, "You'll get your ships.''
That the new "Casanova" lacks such wit is fatal. Heath Ledger is a good actor but Hallstrom's film is busy and unfocused, giving us the view of Casanova's ceaseless activity but not the excitement. It's a sitcom when what is wanted is comic opera.
The fictional character of Francesca Bruni is, oddly enough, not making her first appearance in a film about Casanova. In the 1954 comedy "Casanova's Big Night," she is courted by Pippi Poplino (Bob Hope), a Casanova impersonator who puts on a mask and tries to seduce her.
"Take your mask off!" Francesca (Joan Fontaine) tells him.
"I couldn't do that," he says. "I haven't got anything on underneath it."
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