The fourth film in my analysis of The Films of Celine Sciamma is the sapphic period drama A
Portrait of a Lady on Fire. The first film of Sciamma’s career, which isn’t
placed in a modern context, is also the film with the most thematic depth and cinematic
nuance, where the command of her craft is on full display. Sciamma crystalizes in
celluloid the thought, themes, and philosophy that encapsulates her vision as
an auteur. Yet, when taking a critical sociological
perspective to Sciamma’s most celebrated work to date, we see the cracks in the
acrylic that are caked on the canvas. In fact, through this lens, some of the
noted and praiseworthy aspects of the film may be reevaluated; an unfortunate sociological
turpentine that dissolves the heavily lauded art on screen.
PLOT
Marianne
(Moemie Merlant) a 1770’s French painter is called to Brittany, France to paint
the portrait of a Noble woman’s daughter, Heloise (Adele Haenel). The portrait
is designed to entice a Noble man to marry her client’s progeny. However,
because Heloise is resistant to the chattel marriage that she has been thrust
into by the suicide of her older sister, the painting must be drawn in secret. As
Marianne and Heloise get closer, the objective artist’s gaze turns romantic and
is reciprocated. Every day, as the painting becomes closer to being finished,
so too is their precociously perennial passion endangered of being snuffed out
by time, class status and circumstance.
HISTORICAL
CONTEXT
In both the production of A Portrait of a Lady on
Fire and the period it is supposed to represent, there are liberties and
contrivances that allow for a more modern/postmodern interpretation outside of
the conventions of the context depicted. Granted, Sciamma and painting
consultant Helene Delmaire, mined history to construct the amalgamated backstory
of Marianne, giving her the blended narrative flavor of many female painters of
the 1770’s. Still, the whole conceit of the film is in and of itself a respite
from the patriarchy, which by design, allows for a more contemporary perspective.
Thus, in addition to deploying her pioneered “female gaze” in the picture,
Sciamma makes a period film feel contemporary, at the same time, giving
historical legitimacy to the anachronisms she adds.
Production
Principal Photography for A
Portrait of a Lady on Fire occurred in the Fall of 2018, taking only 38
days. Shot entirely on location at Saint-Pierre-Quiberon in Brittany and a
château in La Chapelle-Gauthier, Seine-et-Marne; the film embodies the
realities of aristocratic life of the time. In vacant hallways and empty rooms,
Sciamma and Cinematographer Claire Mathon tangibly render the differences
between class status and wealth.
In most (improper) cinematic depictions of the aristocracy, be they English or French, there is a level of opulence that was uncharacteristic of the time[1]. This specific anachronism is more a product of illustrating class struggles, particularly the chasmic gulf between the rich and the poor, almost by a one-to-one comparison. The rich are lavishly dressed and well fed, with gluttonous amounts of food prepared in an assortment of feasts for no actual occasion other than the whims of the ruling royals. Sciamma dispenses with the glitz, glamour and lavishness of an irreconcilable fantasy of familial nobility; indicating through the subtle barrenness of the Chateau, and the sacredness of the green dress for the portrait, that while the family (and their name) still holds esteem and social capital value,[2] they are also poor. Thus, they use chattel marriage as a necessary way out of destitution.
In
the film, this distinction is vocalized in an argument between Marianne and
Heloise:
Heloise:
You blame me for what comes next…My Marriage. You don’t support me.
Marianne:
You are right.
Heloise:
Go on. Say what burdens your heart. I believed you braver.
Marianne: I believed you were braver, too.
Heloise:
That’s it then. You find me docile. Worse. You imagine me collusive. You
imagine my pleasure
Marianne:
It is a way of avoiding hope.
Heloise:
Imagine me Happy or Unhappy if that reassures you. But do not imagine me
guilty. You prefer I resist?
Marianne: Yes.
Heloise:
Are you asking me to? Answer Me!
Marianne:
No.
This conversation
is further punctuated by the freedom Marianne has as a painter because she inherited
her father’s business. It affords her the choice to be married or not;
something that Heloise points out is a luxury she does not have after her
sister’s suicide. It is this sense of and taste of freedom that Marianne both represents
and provides Heloise which she first finds attractive; a status that she cannot
achieve but through this brief respite.
Rather than shoot on film, Sciamma
and Mathon chose to photograph using 8k cameras, to give the film an
overexposed look. In an interview with The Criterion Collection, Sciamma states
that this hyperclarity was important to the intimacy of the film and the overall
tenderness between the actors. According to Sciamma, skin, and the capturing of
its shades and textures were so important to the film, that it needed to have a
bold sharpness that would accentuate the subtle nuances of light, shadow,
costume and movement. Mathon and Sciamma framed each shot to emulate Victorian
paintings; often having the actors in a wide shot with the camera locked off,
allowing the actors to move freely about the space, seemingly not worrying
about marks, or blocking. To complement the shot composition and the artistic
crispness of the images being captured, Mathon and Sciamma decided to only use
natural light, candlelight, or light from the cookfire to illuminate the scene.
This diegesis articulates the filmmakers desire to emulate literal artwork. The
combination of light and shadow drifting across the screen creates a mirrored
seductive dance that visually articulates the desires of Marianne and Heloise. With
the elements of the 8k cameras, the wide angle locked off camera shots, and use
of natural and diegetic lighting, each frame truly is a painting.
Sexual Prominence
As implied in the film, the period of the 1770’s in
France was indifferent but not openly hostile to those in the LGBTQAI+
community. While there wasn’t a public embrace of practices; there was an acceptance
of existence. Yet, comparatively, just a few years after the time the events of
the story take place, France would take some of the biggest and boldest steps
toward tolerance and eventual acceptance of the LGBTQ community by being the
first country in history to
decriminalize sodomy
after their Revolution in 1791. Additionally, like in other geographic
locations at the time, it would take generations for these practices to
coalesce and solidify into a particular identity that was not only accepted,
but welcomed and vigorously defended.
As with the differences of class and
wealth, the film depicts how class differences allow for greater obfuscation of
non-heterosexual identities, desires and behaviors. Prior to her sister’s death,
Heloise lived in the convent. This is presumably due to her sexual proclivities
and thus would have gained some measure of peace had her sister not trapped her
in the institution of the heterosexist patriarchy through her suicide. This personified
using the green dress in the titular ‘portrait’[3] and the portrait itself.
In
prerevolutionary France, as with many other cultures that use the corset (as
the green dress does in the film) it is a garment that both “lifts women up and
brings her down (Gibson 2020: 109). Both the green dress and the function of
the portrait is to entice men. Yet, as we see in the film, the production of
the portrait is one that is full of agency, as is the way and under what
conditions the corset is warn. Both corset and portrait manufacture a
patriarchally pleasing “womanly shape” and both are the product of male
fetishization. Yet, the production of these products is female controlled. In Portrait,
the women carve out space for themselves to have as much agency and choice they
can glean from the ubiquitous and ethereal patriarchy throughout the near
totality of the film’s runtime. Even though Marianne and Heloise know their
time together is ephemeral, the women still choose to have it. As Dr. Gibson is
fond of saying: “You always have a choice. It might be a choice with horrible
options, but it is still a choice…and you always have to make it.” (Brutlag
2023).
The
isolation of the characters in the film, not only allows them to escape the
latticed interlocking mechanisms of the patriarchy but allows them to build a queer
feminist commune; one that is built on mutual respect, friendship and
eventually passion. In her novel, Herland, Gilman (1991) illustrates the
female commune as a Utopian society that is unraveled by the presence and
intervention of men. Each man in Gilman’s story is a representation of
consistent masculine stereotypes which are found in the patriarchal society. It
is this combined effort which eradicates (through the slow and steady toxicity
of masculinity) the feminist commune utopia. A society that had no crime, war, or
political strife. A society that had a care model that engages in socialist
practices, not just its rhetoric. Yet, Gilman (1991) cannot conceive of women
having sex with each other. Instead, because motherhood is so important, children
are genetically engineered in “Herland”. Yet, while Gilman (1991) is
suspiciously quiet about homosexuality, Sciamma seems to be parroting Simone de
Beauvoir (2010) in acknowledging its naturalness; and the complex mechanism of
psychology, social circumstances and history that contributes to its self-discovery
and active choices. Women just need a chance and space to create this sapphic
feminist utopia for themselves.
During
the film’s production, French Government launched “The International Strategy for Gender
Equality”
France is enhancing the
coherence and effectiveness of gender actions in its development assistance
policies and external action. The 3rd International Strategy for Gender
Equality (2018-2022) is a steering tool designed to coordinate France’s efforts
to improve the situation of women around the world. The strategy is the
international embodiment of the President’s commitment to make gender equality
the great national cause of his term.
This
strategy acknowledges that women and girls are disproportionally affected by poverty,
violent conflict and climate change, causing them to experience and face
unequal and undo hardships, barriers and a constant threat of sexual violence
around the world. Therefore, this strategy “enable survivors of
conflict-related sexual violence to access compensation and reparations to help
them reintegrate to society” …through a Global Survivors’ Fund. Additionally, this
strategy bolstered political support for gender issues, financial equity issues,
and made them more visible to the public. During that same time, the Ministry
for Europe and Foreign Affairs and the AFD, provided €120 million over three
years (2020-2022) to finance the activities of feminist organizations worldwide.
Concurrently, during the #Metoo
movement in the United States, Ninety-nine prominent French women
signed a letter accusing the Hollywood anti-abuse campaign of censorship and
intolerance. Stating:
“What began as
freeing women up to speak has today turned into the opposite – we intimidate
people into speaking ‘correctly’, shout down those who don’t fall into line,
and those women who refused to bend [to the new realities] are regarded as
complicit and traitors”
The
article cited perceives a populist puritanism that fails to see nuance in a
complicated subject. While these activists are right in principle, their
consistent protection of men and their use of the shield of sexual positivity minimizes,
deflects, and ignores the ways that sexual assault and the sexual violence of
“The Rape culture” is polymorphous.
‘A Portrait’ of Sciamma
and Haenel: A Revisionist history?
This was the first film I watched from Celine Sciamma;
and it was the brilliance, masterwork and love of this film that made me want
to include Sciamma in this director series. As readers can tell from previous
essays, as I began to go back into Sciamma’s filmography beginning with her loose
“Coming of Age” trilogy, I was troubled by what I found. I had expected to see
shades or echoes of the technical mastery that is found here in ‘Portrait’ from
a filmmaker who compassionately shows women’s burgeoning love through agency,
autonomy and choice. A filmmaking style that was a much-needed relief from the objectifying
patriarchal male gaze that propagates in any (moving) picture directed by any cisgendered
man with a fragile ego that sees the camera as an extension of his genitals. Instead,
I perceived Sciamma’s films to expose predatory sexual behavior, faux trans allyship and racism. So, when I rewatched this film as
background and context for this review, I was worried that my perspective would
shift and my love for this film would diminish. Surprisingly, even though I
revisit this film annually, I still found it to be a feminist, passionately
erotic, longingly heart wrenching masterpiece. Yet, I could not reconcile my
perceived incongruity between this film and Sciamma’s earlier work[4]. Was I not seeing
something darker in Portrait that I had seen in the previous trilogy,
because of my affinity for the film? Did I need to give the coming-of-age
trilogy another shot? As I was mulling over this inconsistency while I was rewatching
Portrait, perplexed by my take of her previous films stating: “I like
that this one [Portrait] is about choice and agency from two women of
similar ages that have equal power and control in the relationship.” And this
was what Adelle Haenel did not have when she entered into a romantic relationship
with Sciamma after Water Lillies. Then, taking a broader analytical look,
I remembered that the part of Heloise was written for Haenel, and it all
clicked into place.
When you look at Portrait through
the lens of Sciamma’s and Haenel’s relationship, coupled with the knowledge
that Heloise was written for Haenel; the relationship between Marianne and
Heloise becomes both autobiographical and revisionist. Sciamma seems bent on
reconceptualizing her relationship with Haenel without the imbalance of power
that existed when they met through their roles in the film production of Water
Lillies, and their considerable age difference. Marianne, the painter, is
Sciamma’s surrogate observing Haenel’s Heloise. The framing and shooting of Haenel
betray the intimacy that was once between the director and actor; just as
Marianne in the film can capture Heloise with a loving grace that is unmatched.
Art imitates life in Portrait as Marianne’s existence (as a free Queer
woman) entices Heloise, and it is through Marianne’s guidance that Heloise’s (sexual)
world opens. Through this critique, every aspect of erotic passion and intimacy
seems like an abuser in their contrition stage gaslighting their victim into
believing their version of events. This cinematic gaslighting allows Sciamma to
attempt to reframe her past relationship with Haenel as less predatory. But
this practice also recontextualizes the female gaze, one of this film’s most
lauded strengths.
SOCIAL
ANALYSIS
A Portrait of a Lady on Fire has
a forward-facing feminism at every level. Writer/director Celine Sciamma is a
self-identified feminist
that cites French Feminist literature and art,
95% of the cast and 65% of the crew
that worked on the project are women,
the overarching themes are feminist, collectively dealing with contemporary
women’s issues, and many journalist and scholars have written about the film
regarding: The feminist politics of love, female solidarity, erotic entanglements of ambition, and of course the female gaze. The film also won the Screenplay
award at Cannes and even won that year’s Queer Palm; marking the first time the prize
has been given to a female director. The praise for this film is exceptional,
because this is an exceptional film. On every technical and narrative level,
this film is perfect; allowing a richness of commentary that is widely diverse,
extending well into the cultural zeitgeist. Genovese and Paige (2024) update Adrianne
Rich’s landmark “Compulsory Heterosexuality and the
Lesbian Existence”
through the prism of ‘A Portrait’, discussing the way that queerness can
be a freedom within a heteropatriarchal society that continue to plague these
relationships, lurking around the corner like some horror movie villain. Meanwhile,
they see the use of the Orpheus and Euridice myth both romanticizes and gives
agency to the tragedy of Marianne and Heloise’s fleeting relationship (Genovese
and Paige 2024).
In
the face of such excellent analysis and work on the subject, much of what
follows may seem both shallow and derivative, as the power and excellence of
this film is well documented. Yet, the splinter that continues
to dig its way into my brain throughout all my reviews of Sciamma’s work thus
far, is the incongruity between what the films say they represent, and aspects
of the film’s production that contradict that messaging. As stated earlier, Sciamma’s
predatory shot composition in Water Lilies, her disingenuous trans allyship
without taking a stance on Trans politics in Tomboy, the white savor-y way that
Sciamma looks at Black girls in Girlhood, and the revisionist gaslighting
of Sciamma’s previous relationship with Haenel in Portrait speak to a hypocrisy
that is difficult to ignore. Thus, this section will both echo the film’s
acclaim and interrogate the unresolved criticism I have with Sciamma as a
filmmaker.
The
Female Gaze
Sciamma
is credited with articulating “the female gaze” in cinema. “The female gaze” is
often framed against the typically cinephilic “male gaze” that genders the
perspective of the camera as being heterosexually male. This is due to the historical
sexism of the industry and the longevity of female exclusion behind the camera,
especially as writers, cinematographers and directors. The longitudinal result
of this is a film culture with established filmmaking techniques that objectify
women. Since camera movement and angles, shot structures, and compositions all
assume a male perspective, many of those movie methods are inherently sexist,
often without the awareness of those that participate in its re-creation…especially
if those people identify as men. Unfortunately, this also led to a shallow
understanding of “the female gaze” to only mean: “when the camera is gendered
heterosexually female”, which resulted in the increasing practice of men being
objectified by the camera in a similar way. It is important to note that this
can never be an equal one-to-one comparison due to the patriarchal power
dynamics that are still in the industry. Sexualizing men in a similar way as
the sexualization of women does not have the same level of impact. Conversely
to this popular opinion, “the female gaze” is a point of view of the camera
that respects the subjectivity of the person being looked at by seeing them as
an individual and indelible to the person who is looking (Genovese and Paige
2024).
Sciamma illustrates this definition beautifully in
this conversation between Marianne and Heloise:
Marianne: I did not mean to hurt you.
Heloise: You haven’t hurt me.
Marianne: I have, I can tell. When you are
moved you do this thing with your hand.
Heloise: Really?
Marianne: Yes. And when you’re embarrassed,
you bite your lips. And when you are annoyed, you don’t blink.
Heloise: You know it all.
Marianne: Forgive me. I’d hate to be in your
place.
Heloise: We are in the same place. Exactly in the same place. Come here. Come.
Marianne
approaches and stands next to Heloise
Step
Closer. Look. If you look at me, who do
I look at? When you don’t know what to say you touch your forehead. When you
lose control, you raise your eyebrows. And when you are troubled, you breathe
through your mouth
When
viewing this scene through a feminist lens, the audience is witnessing the building
of a sapphic romance with a melancholic tragedy at its core; but one that is based
on equal power, as Heloise states “They are exactly in the same place.”
Objectively, this is as Sciamma describes in interviews, “the manifesto of the
female gaze.” However, when you frame this same scene in the context of Haenel’s
and Sciamma’s past relationship, the motivation seems more nefarious. Sciamma,
the writer director, having Heloise say, “They are in the exact same place.” is
a line spoken by her former lover, Haenel, to the character of Marianne, the
Sciamma surrogate in the narrative. This can be taken as an attempt at providing
Sciamma with absolution. Through this dialogue, Sciamma recontextualizes her
past relationship with Haenel as being more egalitarian by proxy than it was in
reality. By eliminating the power imbalance of both age and occupation when
their relationship began, Sciamma revises her relationship with Haenel without
taking any of the responsibility. Additionally,
through this critique, every single instance of positive, informed and active
consent between Heloise and Marianne depicted in the film, cast doubt on how
much active and informed consent there actually was in the relationship between
Haenel and Sciamma themselves.
Abortion
and Access to reproductive care
A
major subplot of A Portrait of a Lady on Fire is the solidarity that
Heloise and Marianne have with Sophie as they create a temporary feminine
collective (Genovese and Paige 2024). Together, Marianne and Heloise assist
Sophie in ending her pregnancy once Sophie expresses that she wishes not to
remain so. As the first few attempts prove to be unsuccessful, Marianne and
Heloise accompany Sophie to a female commune where she undergoes a procedure to
terminate the pregnancy. Genovese and Paige (2024) along with many other
scholars and journalist reviewing this film, focused on the symbolic importance
of the male coded infant in the bed with Sophie as the representation of
masculine fragility and the social construction of toxic masculinity that eliminates
the natural compassion all humans possess when witnessing the pain and anguish
of another person.
Just
as important, but less frequently mentioned, is Sophie and Heloise’s re-creation
of the procedure for Marianne to paint for posterity. The depiction of these
abortions is not only a way to catalog history, but provides those looking for
similar procedures with hope that such a thing is possible. This is the
feminist power of female solidarity and the strength of women as a collective
when they are not socialized through the patriarchy to “bargain” away their
power; causing the alienation and vilification of each other for the benefit of
men. It is this unity that truly scares the patriarchal power, because men are
socialized to not be complete human beings without women. Instead, they are
socialized to outsource emotional labor and compassion to women. This is in
addition to the lack of life skills that keep men in conditional dependency to
the structure of patriarchy. Thus, female solidarity, a feminine collective or
a matriarchal society is a principled threat to the patriarchy and therefore
must be eradicated. Gilman (1991) illustrated this over a century ago in Herland
where the insecurity of men attempts to dismantle the matriarchy of a
feminist utopia. It is this very same fear and insecurity that has played out
in US politics over the last 50 years.
In
1969, prior to the ratification of Roe v. Wade, the Abortion Counseling
Service, code named “Jane”, referred women to abortion providers who set both
prices and conditions (Kaplan 2019). This was an underground effort by a group
of women to provide necessary life saving and changing services to women at a
time when unwanted pregnancies increased the mortality rate of women through
botched abortions with coat hangers in “back alleys”[5]. These remarkable women
curbed the dangers of non-state sanctioned abortions until the process was governmentally
regulated; the Abortion Counseling Service being one of the first legal
abortion clinics established in 1973 after Roe. With Roe being
repealed in June of 2022, and the 18 state trigger bans on the procedure, that
were enacted once the federal law was eliminated, the US saw a 2.3 % increase in maternal deaths
in the near three years hence.
Thus, as predicted by women’s health advocates and scholars, the total number
of abortions have not decreased; only the number of safe abortions where
the lives of women are in less jeopardy. Therefore, like Sophie, many of today’s
US women are leaning on female community solidarity to provide a service that
was once determined to be an autonomous body right for women for nearly 50
years.
CONCLUSION
The much-deserved accolades for Sciamma’s fourth film
in her filmography, A Portrait of a Lady on Fire, position it to be the writer/director’s
Magnum Opus, and the work she will be most associated with in perpetuity. It is
a masterpiece of filmmaking in both technical skill and feminist thematic ideology.
A miraculous cinematic achievement: a period piece that both centers itself on
the realities of the past, while allegorically connecting to the same struggles
of the present. Yet, it cannot be ignored that the development of the story and
the overarching narrative seems retroactively self-serving; allowing Sciamma to
absolve herself of criticism and guilt by using the language of film to recontextualize
past relationships and abdicate blame.
REFERENCES
Brutlag,
Brian 2023. “Episode 29: The Handmaid’s Tale Franchise with Dr. Rebecca Gibson”
in The Sociologist’s Dojo Podcast 142:22 https://thesociologistsdojo.libsyn.com/episode-29-the-handmaids-tale-franchise-with-dr-rebecca-gibson
de Beauvior,
Simone 2010. The Second Sex new
York: Vintage books
Genovese,
Emma and Tamsin Phillipa Paige 2024. “Life as Distinct from Patriarchal
Influence: Exploring Queerness and Freedom through A Portrait of a Lady on
Fire.” In Australian Feminist Law Journal 50: 1 pp. 91-112.
Gibson,
Rebecca 2020. The Corseted Skeleton: A Bioarcheology of Binding New
York: Palgrave Macmillian
Gilman,
Charolette Perkins 1991. Herland and Selected Stories Barbara Soloman
eds. New York: Signet Classic.
Kaplan,
Laura 2019. The Legendary Underground Abortion Service New York: Vintage
Books.
Sciamma,
Celine 2019. A Portrait of a Lady on Fire Lillie Films/Neon France
[1]
Especially in the late 1770’s France where the seeds of revolution were being
planted for a harvest that bore fruit in 1789.
[2]
Social Capital is a Bourdieuian term to mean the value of a person’s social relationships within a particular
society. The value of those relationship have the ability to change depending
on the changing context and dynamics of a particular social situation.
[3] I
am aware that the actual “Portrait of a lady on fire” is not the portrait we
see Marianne creating through the film but the picture she paints afterword of
the image of Heloise by a bonfire with a streak of flame climbing up her dress.
[4]
Granted, many directors lack consistency, many of them play with genre and tone
that make them eclectic and well rounded. Plus, the inconsistent criticism is
also unfairly lobbed at non-male directors as a not-so-subtle jab at their
competence
[5] It should be mentioned that many of these
clinics also provide general reproductive healthcare but because they are also
tied to abortion access all of those other services like pap smears,
mammograms, and breast cancer screenings are also lost.
