Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Question 1

Context

Answer 1

• French
• Historical romantic drama
• Late 18th century France, post first wave of feminism movement

Question 2

Opening

Answer 2

• Start with ECU of blank canvas, brushes are faint but gradually get thicker, which may signify how the portrait progresses, with Heloise and Marianne
• Group of young women in education, which was unexpected in 18th century French patriarchy
• Series of close-ups in portrait in portrait style of girls looking up, which signifies a sense of voyeurism and establishes a key concept of gazing
• Lack of non-diegetic sound, instead pleonastic foley sound of charcoal hitting canvas, whcih creates a leitmotif for painting and alerts the spectator to focus on the portrait
• Marianne says to focus on her body, which establishes the female gaze
• Marianne is wearing blue, which feels wrong as her colour is red throughout the film. Signifies the idea that Marianne is becoming Heloise. Her whole life has become revolved around Heloise as they become ‘one’

Question 3

Characters

Answer 3

• Marianne: Brunette woman (painter)
• Heloise: Blonde woman (paintee)
• Sophie: young maid

Question 4

Abortion sequence

Answer 4

• Sophie is getting an abortion while there is a baby next to her, which creates a juxtaposition of birth and abortion
• Sciamma says she wanted to refer to the complexity and nuanced nature of womanhood under a patriachal society
• Marianne has gone from depicting the male gaze, to looking as a woman, to a woman performaing an act of womanhood
• Van Zoonen says: “The film should be instrumental to creating feminist utopias”
• Spectator is encouraged to look at the portrait in another way. Signifies defiance
• Feminist imagery as she sees herself reflected on Heloise’s genitalia
• Corset is a historical symbol of female oppression
• Whole story is from her memory, signifies Heloise as a ghost that haunts her

Question 5

Rejection of gaze

Answer 5

• Looking at Heloise through female eyes, so rejects the male gaze
• Gaze upon Heloise changes from male to female, through portraiture and the way she paints her
• Heloise is an active participant in the way she wants to be seen, which is re-enforced by her saying she doesn’t like the portrait

Question 6

Heloise voyeuristic positioning

Answer 6

• Being looked at by Marianne, mother, spectator and the man in Milan
• Encouraged to study Heloise and look upon her features: Form, shape, look of woman
• Looking at Heloise from a male perspective, as the film industry was dominated by men

Question 7

Marianne depiction

Answer 7

• She is placed as coming from male world and being masculine, which is signified by small traits such as, ripping bread apart with hands, swimming to get canvas, climbing up cliff
• Idea of fire and water. Marianne aligns with fire, which reflects masculinity as fire represents aggression/violence, which are stereotypical male traits
• When Marianne arrives on the island, she sits in front of the fire nude, which signifies that her masculinity has been stripped as she enters feminine dominated world

Question 8

Setting

Answer 8

• Initially set in a school, which in the 18th century would have been a male dominated occupation, which places Marianne in a patriarchal society
• Heloise is placed on an island, away from the patriarchy

Question 9

Heloise analysis

Answer 9

• Highly enigmatic characters. Sophie says she has lived there for 3 years and Heloise has been there for a few weeks but hasn’t seen her once
• Establishes a ghost-like feel
• Low-key lit sequence creates an eerie mood, which is anchored down by the painting having no face. This signifies the ghost-like, enigmatic nature of Heloise
• Heloise is being painted for the male gaze

Question 10

Links to Vertigo

Answer 10

• Hitchcock uses the colour green to signify enigma, which can be seen in portrait as Heloise’s green dress evokes enigma and mystery
• Hitchcock is a master of revealing complexities within the characters, whcihc is exactly what Portrait is about (love story/exploration of chracter)
• Vertigo known as ultimate film for male gaze. Laura Mulvey used it as her main focus point for her Male gaze theory, which is an essay on visual pleasure and narrative cinema

Question 11

Analysis

Answer 11

• Intradiegetic gaze is from one woman to another, however fundamentally the gaze is male as the focus is on the look of Heloise. There is a visual depiction of Heloise through Marianne’s gaze - she is looked at in an objectifying way. Heloise doesn’t know she is being looked at, which increases the passivity of the subject
• We see Heloise from Marianne’s perspective, as she is the subject being studied
• Cinematography begins to shift for the first time when they are at the beach, and then the second time they are framed in a two-shot
• Heloise is framed so that we focus on her body, her head is cut off by the top of the miror
• Woman in the mirror is a metaphor for women in film, as they are used to be gazed upon by men for their bodies. Sciamma is overtly criticising a patriarchal society

Question 12

Piano Scene

Answer 12

• Piano is behind Marianne. Heloise is now looking at Marianne, however the light is still on Heloise, so we are still being encouraged to gaze upon Heloise
• Piano sounds like a storm, and may reflective of their love - Storm passes quickly, like their love

Question 13

First kiss scene

Answer 13

• The scenes are put together by a match-cut with the singing over the top
• They are put together to represent their passion and a climax of their love
• One was by the fire, and one was by the ocean. Loves sparks near the fire, they kiss by the sea as well, which signifies a sense of equality
• The fact she keeps disappearing connotes a sense of loss

Question 14

Aesthetics

Answer 14

• Colour red is symbolic of masucline world (patriarchy) and this is why Marianne is consistently seen in red, as she came from the patriarchy
• As Marianne jumps into the ocean on the way to the island, her red dress is englufed by the blue of the water, which signifies that she is entering a feminine dominated area that rejects notions of patriarchal society
• Heloise is denoted in blue as she lives on a feminine island, which is clearly detatched from the patriarchy. Sciamma is creating the idea that women do not need men. Anchored down by the man leaving Marianne to carry everything up the hill, which signifies a rise in female independence, reflecting society’s first-wave of feminism in the 1800s
• Portraiture style, every shot looks like a painting, emphasises a focus on attention to detail and the art of studying for perfection