Product Description

A widely acclaimed critical favorite honored with a Golden Globe nomination as Best Foreign Language Film, ARTEMISIA is the highly provocative true story of a young woman whose bold pursuit of artistic freedom and physical desire threatened the elite powers of her time! Artemisia Gentileschi, the beautiful and talented daughter of one of Italy's greatest painters, is forbiden to fully pursue her own passion for painting. When she convinces a renowned and unconventional artist to tutor her, however, he not only liberates her in the world of art, but initiates her into the treacherous world of sex and love! Following the controversy of a theatrical release that saw the original NC-17 rating overturned on appeal, Miramax Films is proud to present this important and powerful motion picture complete and unedited!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14214 in DVD
• Released on: 2001-12-18
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: French
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 96 minutes

From The New Yorker
This controversial and confused new film, written and directed by Agnès Merlet, is ostensibly about the seventeenth-century painter Artemisia Gentileschi, but it is really the silliest form of late-twentieth-century iconography. The movie, which stars the fetching Valentina Cervi, makes a sexy love story out of Artemisia's relationship with her teacher, Agostino Tassi (played by Miki Manojlovic): it's art lessons as foreplay. "Let yourself go," Tassi tells his young pupil, as though he is quoting from Masters and Johnson, and Artemisia not only expertly guides him in bed but insists that he gave her pleasure when he raped her. Although the real Artemisia did flout the conventions of her time by insisting on painting from live models, it's hard to believe that she proceeded with the air of defiant entitlement she's given here. Once you accept the film on its own fraudulent terms, however, it's quite engaging-not least because of the erotic subtext. In French. -Daphne Merkin
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Not the true story...
When this movie was first released, due to the outcry from the feminist and art history communities, Miramax had to remove their claim that it was "the true story of the first female painter in art history." Actually, it is practically a complete inversion of Artemisia Gentileschi's real story...she was in fact raped by Tassi (the 'love interest' in the movie) and maintained her stand *against* him even under torture (as is documented in the records of the trial). The film romanticizes and sexualizes her and their relationship to an almost soft-porn level while giving hardly any screen time to her actual work and using her paintings out of context...which is a shame, because the real story of this remarkable woman would have been just as dramatic if not more so.

Politically incorrect, and thought provoking
This film is a must-see for feminists and art historians although (or perhaps precisely BECAUSE) it may make you angry. It is a beautiful, intensely sympathetic study of the young Artemisia Gentileschi, her struggles to learn and grow as an artist in a society that makes it very difficult for her to do so, and her relationships with the men in her life. Artemisia has no desire to be the feminist role model that she later became (how could she? The word and concept of "feminism" didn't exist in her day), she just needed to paint. The part of this movie that infuriated feminists is its portrayal of her relationship with her much older and very disreputable teacher Tassi as consensual, rather than as a violent rape, followed by a relationship in which Artemisia reluctantly cooperated because he had promised her marriage.

According to modern definitions, of course, Tassi was guilty of some form of rape, whether Artemisia said "yes" or "no," because she was only 17 at the oldest, and he took advantage of his position of power. But there may be some truth in the movie's version of their relationship; Artemisia wouldn't be the first or the last young woman to have a crush on an older teacher, and to try out her powers of sexual attraction without fully understanding the consequences. It's true that the movie probably whitewashes Tassi's character in order to portray his relationship with Artemisia as a love story. In the actual trial transcript, Artemisia mocked him bitterly when they applied the thumb-screws to her hands during testimony, saying, "This is the wedding ring you promised me!" If she had ever felt any affection for him, it was gone by then. But if you allow the film some leeway for artistic license, it presents a fascinating study of how even a seemingly devastating experience like the rape trial and scandal could be part of an artist's growth. Artemisia's later career was not that of a poor, wronged victim; she went on to become a very successful painter.

Sloppy, inaccurate period costume flick
Everybody else has clarified for you that the REAL Artemisia's story is not told here and is actually "inverted", i.e. they turn the story of her rape into a consensual love affair.

But that's far from the worst thing...I think the worst thing about this smarmy, heavy-breathing costume flick is that it makes the story of a brilliant woman painter's career into a story about who she sleeps with. And that's a terrible injustice.

The least interesting thing about Artemisia Gentilleschi is her sex life. If this film had the slightest integrity it would have at least shown her paintings. If you viewed this movie and had no other knowledge of the artist and the historical period, you would come away feeling you had watched a 17th century version of the Red Shoe Diaries...i.e., softcore porn, in this case focused on the smarmily told sexual awakening of a pretty teenage girl. Ugh.

You can skip this one... or watch if if you are an adult, but please please do not offer it up to a youngster, especially a girl, as any kind of "life of the artist" type of film (like the vastly superior "Frida" about Frida Kahlo), because this movie just sends absolutely the wrong kind of message to girls, that your sexuality is the most interesting thing about you, and talent is only another way to get laid.