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<\/p>\nBy Emma Jones.<\/p>\n
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Portrait of a Lady on Fire<\/em>, directed by C\u00e9line Sciamma, 2019<\/p>\n I wanted to use the tools of cinema so you would feel the patriarchy without actually having to embody it with an antagonist Set in eighteenth-century France, Portrait of a Lady on Fire<\/em> (2019) hints at the patriarchal society that dictates the conditions of the women who inhabit the film. It is the reason why the painter, Marianne (No\u00e9mie Merlant), submits work for exhibition under her father\u2019s name. It is the reason, too, why she has been called to a small island off the coast of Brittany. The Countess (Valeria Golino) has commissioned her to paint a portrait of her daughter, H\u00e9lo\u00efse (Ad\u00e8le Haenel), due by arrangement to be married to a Milanese aristocrat. Mentioned but not seen is H\u00e9lo\u00efse\u2019s sister who, rather than succumb to marriage, chose instead to jump off the rocky cliffs that surround the island. H\u00e9lo\u00efse is her replacement, the planned portrait her dowry.<\/p>\n If the patriarchy defines the rules of the society in which the narrative is set, however, then it sits on the periphery. The focus, instead, is on how desire builds and is felt, as Marianne and H\u00e9lo\u00efse become lovers. The relationships in the film that are defined by power, ownership and oppression, are the antithesis of the one formed between Marianne and H\u00e9lo\u00efse. As the latter begins to paint the former we see an affair born between equals. And, tellingly for a film that is about the relationship between artist and sitter, it is through the act of looking that this equality is engendered. Throughout, director and writer C\u00e9line Sciamma creates a visual language that is a purposeful act of transgression.<\/p>\n The relationship between H\u00e9lo\u00efse and Marianne, and to a different extent, between them and the young housekeeper Sophie (Lu\u00e0na Bajrami), is something they create for themselves, that sits outside existing frames of reference. It\u2019s an argument for an alternative mode of being, and it is built through a different mode of looking. That\u2019s the process we are watching in Portrait of a Lady on Fire<\/em> \u2014 a figuring out of new ways to look at one another and, by extension, at the world around us. It feels like Sciamma is trying to invent something too, a cinematic vision that breaks out of its own patriarchal confines. It is a queering of vision, and a rebellion against existing lesbian love stories in cinema that place performative eroticism over any meaningful connection.<\/p>\n This way of looking impacts each and every scene. Nothing in Sciamma\u2019s film is wasted. Everything is slowed right down. With cinematographer Claire Mathon she creates a space in which intimacy can flourish. Not just between Marianne and H\u00e9lo\u00efse, but between character and audience too. In minute nine of the film, Marianne has only just arrived at the house, after travelling by boat to the island. She has not yet met H\u00e9lo\u00efse. Candlelit, she walks down the empty staircase in her stained painter\u2019s smock, makes her way into the sparse kitchen and finds cheese and bread in the cupboards. There\u2019s no dialogue and, like the rest of the film, there is no musical score either, only diegetic sound \u2014 sighs of wind in the corridors, the crackle of the fire in the kitchen.<\/p>\n There is nothing in this scene that anticipates some big reveal, but neither is it simply a bridge used to drive the narrative forward. Indeed, Sciamma\u2019s practice as a screenwriter begins with two lists: a \u2018desired\u2019 list and a \u2018needed\u2019 list. Over time, after the desired elements have been mapped onto the needed scenes, she says \u2018you can end up in a position where you have two scenes you want, without the bridge you need\u2019. That\u2019s how this scene feels. It sits outside of any conflict and yet still tells a story. It is a minute in time held up to the light for purposeful consideration. There is no need to wait for something to happen. It is already here, and it is quietly revelatory.<\/p>\n The story up until minute nine of the film focuses on the painter. It is a group of young women we see at the very start of the film, making their marks on paper. Marianne guides them. \u2018First, my contours. The outline,\u2019 she tells her class, \u2018Not too fast. Take time to look at me\u2019. It\u2019s the first words we hear (or read, if, like me, you are watching the subtitles in English over the original French). As an audience, then, it is Marianne whom we have considered first. The artist\/muse dichotomy falls apart. We watch as her students look at her, in a way that she has dictated. It is something we are reminded of as she in turn paints H\u00e9lo\u00efse, and when H\u00e9lo\u00efse reminds her that she isn\u2019t the only one regarding, seeing, when she tells Marianne: \u2018If you look at me, who do I look at?\u2019.<\/p>\n Keep looking, Sciamma suggests, and we may find a gaze that is reciprocal, one that we recognise and one that we can hold, tenderly.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Previous essays in the Minute 9<\/strong> series curated by Nicholas Rombes<\/strong>: <\/p>\n <\/p>\n ABOUT THE AUTHOR<\/strong> If the patriarchy defines the rules of the society in which the narrative is set, however, then it sits on the periphery. The focus, instead, is on how desire builds and is felt, as Marianne and H\u00e9lo\u00efse become lovers. The relationships in the film that are defined by power, ownership and oppression, are the antithesis of the one formed between Marianne and H\u00e9lo\u00efse. As the latter begins to paint the former we see an affair born between equals. And, tellingly for a film that is about the relationship between artist and sitter, it is through the act of looking that this equality is engendered. Throughout, director and writer C\u00e9line Sciamma creates a visual language that is a purposeful act of transgression.<\/p>\n By Emma Jones<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113075,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nonfiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113071"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113084,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113071\/revisions\/113084"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n– C\u00e9line Sciamma, 2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\n1. Nicholas Rombes<\/a>
\n2. Alex Zamalin<\/a>
\n3. Grant Maierhofer<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/52764630265_a743267dd2_z.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nEmma Jones<\/strong> is a freelance art and non-fiction writer who is interested in the slippery form of the essay. Emma was previously Curatorial Assistant at Tate Modern, where she specialised in photography. Curatorial credits include solo displays on Graciela Iturbide (2019), Ernest Cole (2020) and \u0160ejla Kameri\u0107 (2022). Recent writing credits include contributions to the book publication Photography: A Feminist History<\/em> (2021), the magazine L’Essenzial Studio Journal V.4<\/em> (2022) and online at Lucy Writers Platform (2023). Contact her on twitter: @perceptivehow<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"