{"id":176,"date":"2026-01-28T21:01:21","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T21:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/introtofilm2026\/?p=176"},"modified":"2026-02-03T17:58:32","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T17:58:32","slug":"portrait-of-a-lady-on-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/introtofilm2026\/2026\/01\/28\/portrait-of-a-lady-on-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Portrait of a Lady On Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Portrait of a Lady On Fire (2019) is an alluring French romantic drama directed by C\u00e9line Sciamma. The film largely follows Marianne, a painter commissioned to secretly create a potrait of H\u00e9lo\u00efse, a newly betrothed woman. The stories internal clock is largely controlled by Marianne’s progress on H\u00e9lo\u00efse’s portrait and her impending marriage to a Milanese nobleman. While finalities drive the narrative to its inescapable outcome, Sciamma embeds lighting choices, symbolic props, and a seemingly still tone to build the emotional arcs of the film. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Throughout the movie, lighting, specifically artificial lighting is used to highlight the characters, singling them out from the world they live in. The isolation of her characters from their world, creates a tone of vulnerability. A commentary that the expectations of female civility obstruct their autonomy to move beyond canvas they are trapped within. Much like last week’s film, Rear Window (1954) written by John Michael Hayes and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Sciamma’s film subtly plays on the ideas of voyuerism and spectating. The rigid quality of each character’s line delivery is both a nod to the restriction of 18th century woman, and a device for the audience to view the characters through a picturesque lens. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A portrait does not capture the entirety of a person, only an illusion, a fleeting image of how an individual appears temporarily. A portrait does not speak to a person character, only what matters on the surface. Yet, potraits proceeded women in this time. After Marianne presents the H\u00e9lo\u00efse portrait, H\u00e9lo\u00efse says:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is that me?…Is that how you seem me?…You mean there is no life? No presence?…Not everything is fleeting. Some feelings are deep”(Portrait of A Lady on Fire, Sciamma). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sciama’s surface level plot is Mariam is commissioned to make a portrait for H\u00e9lo\u00efse who is being married off. The complex undercurrent, is the female characters understanding of how they are perceived, and their resistance to “the rules, conventions, and ideas” Marianne speaks of. The complexities of societies view of women, and the lens through which we view them in the film, are meant to be in contention. While 18th century society intends to reduce women to the emotional depth of a picture, the audience is compelled to feel discomfort or shame, intrusively watching the intimate and emotionally sophisticated lives of women in that time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This reaction is in part accomplished through the symbolism of the fire. Within her film, fire has multiple meanings. When Marianne and H\u00e9lo\u00efse are seated at the harpsichord it can mean the kindling of a new romantic interest, when Merrianne burns the old portrait it can mean an intense desire to undo, when H\u00e9lo\u00efse and Marianne speak over candlelight it is an ignition (when Marianne realizes she knows love), but the greatest meaning behind the symbol of fire is the power to raise societal expectations and chose one another. Even when they are separated their flame doesn’t die, the reason why H\u00e9lo\u00efse holds page 28 open in her new self-portrait . Using the same artistically repressive mode, H\u00e9lo\u00efse honors and permanently affirms her love. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given how portraits are dehumanizing in the film and how audiences pervasively watch Marianne’s private artwork, from another artistic form (film): Is the film picturesque quality more a commentary on societies intent to remove emotional depth from women, voyeuristically intrude in intimate parts of their lives, or can it be about women’s ability to move beyond restrictions and permanently assert their emotions? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Portrait of a Lady On Fire (2019) is an alluring French romantic drama directed by C\u00e9line Sciamma. The film largely follows Marianne, a painter commissioned to secretly create a potrait of H\u00e9lo\u00efse, a newly betrothed woman. The stories internal clock is largely controlled by Marianne’s progress on H\u00e9lo\u00efse’s portrait and her impending marriage to a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10020,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-week-3-9-89-10-mise-en-scene"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/introtofilm2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/introtofilm2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/introtofilm2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/introtofilm2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10020"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/introtofilm2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/introtofilm2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":191,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/introtofilm2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions\/191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/introtofilm2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/introtofilm2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/introtofilm2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}