When Women Look at Women

What’s great about a blog is that you can use it to word vomit (I really hate that phrase). Last year while watching the great Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), I had an idea for an article that never quite came to fruition. While that article may still be quite some way off, I wanted to gather some ideas here. One of my research interests is examining the relationship between the film image and the spectator, otherwise known as gaze theory. What attracts our gaze to the cinema screen; what desires or fears do the images speak to; are there certain codes that speak directly to different demographics within the audience? Portrait provides the perfect material for this as director Céline Sciamma knowingly plays with the female gaze throughout. The French film is set in late eighteenth century Brittany and follows the love story of two women. It begins with Marianne (Noémie Merlant) arriving on an island where she has been commissioned to paint the wedding portrait of Héloïse (Adèle Haenel). While the reluctant Héloïse gradually allows Marianne to paint her, the pair develop a relationship that isn’t destined to last. Notably, throughout the film, the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is woven into the narrative (you can watch Sciamma discussing this here: https://www.polygon.com/2020/6/23/21299034/portrait-of-a-lady-on-fire-criterion-clip-celine-sciamma-orpheus-eurydice-exclusive). Indeed, the film’s use of the myth has been discussed at length by many academics, some of whom are listed below as references. For this reason, I am not going to detail every reference or parallel the film draws with the myth. Instead, I wish to focus on the scene where Héloïse reads Ovid’s version of the myth from the Metamorphoses.[1] When gathered around a table, Héloïse reads the myth to Marianne and her maid, Sophie. In short, the story tells the tale of the death of Eurydice who is bitten by a snake. Her heartbroken lover, Orpheus, using his gift of music, strikes a deal with the gods. He can collect Eurydice from the underworld on condition that he does not meet her gaze until they have crossed the threshold into the world of the living. Yet, as Héloïse says in the film:

‘fearing losing Eurydice and impatient to see her, her loving spouse turned and she was instantly drawn back’

[English subtitles]

The myth points to the power of the male gaze that leads to the second death of Eurydice. Yet, the film does seem to deviate slightly from other translations of Ovid’s work. For example, Kline’s translation reads:

Afraid she was no longer there, and eager to see her, the lover turned his eyes. In an instant she dropped back, and he, unhappy man, stretching out his arms to hold her and be held, clutched at nothing but the receding air. Dying a second time…

Ovid, Metamorphoses, 10.45-50. Trans. by T, Kline (2014)

In Kline’s version, Orpheus can be read as having genuine concern for Eurydice, giving more of a tragic tone to the story than the film might suggest. Thus, in response to the version told in the film, Sophie, the young maid, proclaims her disgust for Orpheus. But it is the readings given by Héloïse and Marianne that are interesting. Marianne takes Sophie’s side of the argument, blaming Orpheus for Eurydice’s demise for he did not have to look but instead: ‘He chooses the memory of her. That’s why he turns. He doesn’t make the lover’s choice, but the poet’s’. Héloïse, on the other hand, offers an alternative explanation: ‘perhaps she is the one who says ‘turn around’’. The three women’s discussion of the myth shows the rich variety of interpretations that can be given. Thus, as classicist Benjamin Eldon Stevens, ‘Portrait does not so much update the ancient story as debate its meanings’ (2020).[2]

From the two different readings the women give in the film, much can be said. Firstly, turning to Marianne’s reading, she points to the male gaze in the myth, the one that commits Eurydice to memory. According to Marianne, the myth seems to suggest that Orpheus would rather remember Eurydice, rather than have her alive next to him. This is Orpheus constructing Eurydice’s image as an ideal and through his eyes. And this reminds me of another modern retelling of the myth: the French writer Jean Anouilh’s play Eurydice (1941). This adaptation is set in the 1930s and it is Eurydice who kills herself because she believes that Orphée (Orpheus) could not love her because of her ‘promiscuous’ past. As theatre scholar Leonard Cabell Pronko (1968) says, ‘Eurydice soon realises that Orphée has a fantastic image of her in his mind, and that she can never conform to this ideal Eurydice’ (1961, 22). Like the Orpheus of mythology, Orphée is able to bring Eurydice back from the dead. Yet so fixated is he on her past, that he asks whether she was ever Dulac’s (a manager of the acting troupe of which they are a part) lover, and in doing so he gazes into her eyes to know whether she is telling the truth. By looking at her, he breaks the agreement of her return to the living world and alas, upon learning the truth about her past, Eurydice dies once again. Yet, in the end, Orphée kills himself so that he can be with Eurydice, and Pronko gives the following reading: ‘She is not the Eurydice he knew in life, however, but the idealized Eurydice whose image he had tried to project over her, and in death their love becomes luminous and pure’ (1968, 198). Men would rather die to be with their idealised image of woman than have the real, messy, or sexually ‘impure’, woman with a voice.

It is this construction of the ideal woman through the gaze of the male that draws comparison with the film Laura (1944) which, like Portrait of a Lady on Fire, centres around a painting of a woman.[3] Unlike Painting, however, Laura is a film where the eponymous character is subject to a dominant male gaze. In the film, Laura, an advertising executive, is believed to have been murdered and an investigation ensues. A portrait of Laura is hung above a fireplace in her apartment, and it’s this painting that plays a central role. Laura has a range of potential suitors, and it’s clear from the painting that she’s a very beautiful woman. Indeed, the detective investigating her murder becomes infatuated with the portrait of the presumed dead woman. Yet, (spoiler!) Laura is not dead. In a case of mistaken identity, another woman was fatally shot in Laura’s apartment while Laura was away on a trip. In the end, it’s revealed that Waldo, Laura’s mentor, was the killer, for so infatuated was he with Laura that he couldn’t bear for anyone else to ‘have’ her. For Waldo, it was to better to kill the woman he desired and be left with the memory of her, than for her to live and not yield to him. Whether it’s the detective or Waldo, it is the male’s image of Laura that seduces and is preferred over the real living person.

Thus, Marianne in her reading of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice points to the male gaze in storytelling and film, and that woman has repeatedly been depicted through a male lens, be that through the male artist, the male author, the male director, and so on. Yet, in Héloïse’s reading of the myth, an alternative is given. Héloïse suggests that Orpheus turned to look at Eurydice because she called out to him. With this reading, Héloïse gives Eurydice power and, most notably, a voice. What if Eurydice did call out for Orpheus to look at her? Then she would be knowingly drawing his gaze to her, willing him to commit her to memory. And this is exactly what happens in the film. We know that Héloïse is Eurydice, and there are frequent nods to this. For example, Marianne sees the ghostly image of Héloïse in a wedding dress as if she’s already trapped in the underworld. And, in a sense, she is. She is to be trapped in an unwanted marriage to a man where she is ‘dead’, her limited freedom has been taken. Later in the film, Héloïse calls to Marianne to ‘turn around’, just as she believes Eurydice calls to Orpheus. And it’s this dynamic that calls attention not to a male gaze in the film, but to the female gaze (and a queer one at that). Yes, Marianne is there to subject Héloïse to her gaze but there isn’t a power hierarchy here; Héloïse is inviting the gaze. Thus, both women are aware of being observed and are equal participants. For example, when Héloïse first sees Marianne’s work, she is disappointed with what she sees, for it’s a piece that follows convention rather than character. Thus, in a later scene, when the artist lists Héloïse’s traits, the subject asks Marianne ‘If you look at me, who do I look at?’. The answer is of course, Marianne. In turn, Héloïse describes her observations of the artist, ‘when you lose control, you raise your eyebrows’, for example. The women are equal, it is not the painter who simply holds dominance here. Thus, the women work together to produce a painting that captures Héloïse’s true likeness, thus also showing that woman, when object of the gaze, does not have to be subordinate nor passive.

In the end, Marianne, Héloïse’s lover, her Orpheus, is reduced to looking at Héloïse’s painted image and gazing at her from afar, for Héloïse has made the poet’s choice and allowed herself to be committed to memory. Thus, while the film points to the female gaze onscreen, it also points to the female gaze offscreen and that of the writer and director Céline Sciamma. As the film is directed by a woman, we have tender queer love and multifaceted images of women, and this draws stark comparison with other films that produce idealised versions that conform to male convention.

References:

Cadigan, M. (2020). ‘Love, Tragedy, and the Gaze in 'Portrait of a Lady on Fire'’. Film Cred. [Online] Available at: <https://film-cred.com/portrait-lady-fire-celine-sciamma-greek-myth/> [Accessed 24 September 2022].

Film Fatales (2021). ‘How portrait of a lady on fire crafts a female gaze’. Youtube. [Online] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzT8TmzuGMM> [Accessed 24 September 2022].

Hartright, L. (2015). ‘The Male Gaze and the Female Art Object in The Woman in White (1859) and Laura (1944)’ Victorian Sexualities. [online] Available at: <https://blogs.dickinson.edu/victorianlit/2015/02/20/the-male-gaze-and-the-female-art-object-in-the-woman-in-white-1859-and-laura-1944/?fbclid=IwAR0B1bljWNOMqvVS3WRGFgW_eizpQpq_toChmhI5iNJtqbLYd0Y4eS2BbXo> [Accessed 24 September 2022].

Leonard, V. (2020). ‘Women Retold: Eurydice and Portrait of a Lady on Fire’. [Online] Torch. Available at: <https://www.torch.ox.ac.uk/article/women-retold-eurydice-and-portrait-of-a-lady-on-fire> [Accessed 24 September 2022].

Packard, C. (2020). ‘In ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’, Looking is a Dangerous Act’. Frieze [online] Available at: <https://www.frieze.com/article/portrait-lady-fire-looking-dangerous-act> [Accessed 24 September 2022].

Pronko, L, C. (1968) The World of Jean Anouilh. University of California Press: Los Angeles.

Stevens, B, E. (2020) ‘‘Not the Lover’s Choice, but the Poet’s’: Classical Receptions in Portrait of a Lady on Fire’. Frontière·s 2. [Online]. Available: https://publications-prairial.fr/frontiere-s/index.php?id=258. [Accessed: 24/09/2022]

[1] The myth can be found in Met. 10. 1-85. [2] Stevens, B, E. (2020) ‘‘Not the Lover’s Choice, but the Poet’s’: Classical Receptions in Portrait of a Lady on Fire’. Frontière·s 2. [Online]. Available: https://publications-prairial.fr/frontiere-s/index.php?id=258. Accessed: 24/09/2022. [3] Laura belongs to the genre of film noir and for which I recommend reading E Ann Kaplan’s edited collection Women in Film Noir (1978) (particularly because it contains excellent chapters that explore the subversive potential of the femme fatale).