Told as a memory which explains the backstory of one of Marianne’s paintings, art serves a critical role in the narrative of the film. Cinematography is used throughout Portrait of a Lady On Fire to mimic painting and pull on the tension between film and painting. While Marianne is hired to paint Heloïse’s portrait, she is commissioned to do so in secret and very much is trying to capture Heloïse’s image. After quickly completing a rendition of the portrait and coming clean to Heloïse, Heloïse asks “Is that me?” This question pulls on the core of the movie and raises questions about the limitations of art. We know Heloïse is the subject of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, and that she is initially unwilling to pose. The imposition of portraiture on Heloïse is achieved in film too using medium close up shots from a fixed point with her front and center. Until Heloïse poses and gets closer with Marienne, there is a clear message through the slow production and eventual burning of her portrait that Heloïse true self could never be contained on a canvas. Indeed the lasting image we get of Heloïse is the portrait of her on fire which not only mimics her physical state at the campfire, but her position as a young woman soon to be married off in Milan.

Cinematography is used again when Marianne is playing the piano for Heloïse to “show her what music is like.” While this image of the two is never painted the scene is filmed with a series of individual close ups and then a final close up of the two sitting on the piano bench together. Like painting, there is a clear nod to the connective and experiential qualities of music which is teased out through the progression of cinematography. Shots are deliberately filmed such that music and art more generally include both the subject and painter. Showing the whole process of art also engages the viewer as the subject of a film. While there is a strong commentary on the difficulty of capturing or describing art, there are many unanswered questions surrounding the implications of such a meta view of one of humanity’s most central crafts.