In 1975, Laura Mulvey published a ground-breaking essay introducing the idea of the male gaze. Her essay ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ developed ideas from Freud about the concept of Scopophilia: “taking other people as objects, subjecting them to a controlling curious gaze” (Mulvey, 1975, p. 59). Mulvey argued that this happens in relation to women on screen; traditionally women “connote a to-be-looked-at-ness” (Mulvey, 1975, p. 62) which translates through women being shown in sexually erotic ways for men to objectify, possess, and control. Janice Loreck discusses this idea of the male gaze in her article for The Conversation where she explains that the “most popular movies are filmed in ways that satisfy masculine scopophilia” (Loreck, 2016) and this does seem to be the case for the majority of Hollywood successes however Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Sciamma, 2019) is different; directed and shot by women, the film seems to subvert the typical masculine gaze elicited in mainstream cinema, standing in opposition as “a manifesto about the female gaze” (Spies-Gans, 2020).
To delve deeper into Mulvey’s theory, we must understand both how women are portrayed on screen as well as how this affects the male spectator. Mulvey explains that women in film have traditionally “functioned on two levels: as erotic object for the characters within the screen story, and as erotic object for the spectator within the auditorium” (Mulvey, 1975, p. 62). The male spectator identifies with the male protagonist on screen through their gender, their gazes’ fuse together so that the power of the male protagonist also becomes the power of the spectator; both are given “the active power of the erotic look” (Mulvey, 1975, p. 63). What then is interesting about Portrait of a Lady on Fire, is that there are little to no men in the film: they appear at the beginning and briefly at the end but offering no real interest in either female protagonist therefore this linking of a masculine gaze cannot occur. In her article in The New Yorker, Rachel Syme notes that “at every turn [Sciamma’s] film subverts the male perspective in favour of feminine ways of looking” (Syme, 2020) and this is immediately apparent through the simple absence of men. Moreover, we can also see this subversion of male perspective through the scene where Heloise and Marianne meet for the first time. Firstly, a scene with two women denies the possibility for a male gaze from a male character but it also replaces the possibility for a male spectator to elicit a patriarchal gaze by placing the camera in Marianne’s eyeline. The camera shows Marianne begin to walk down the stairs to meet Heloise before changing to a point of view shot as she sees Heloise for the first time who stands with her back to her, covered head to toe in a dark robe ensuring that neither of us, the spectator, nor Marianne can objectify her.
This point of view shot picks up again as they walk out of the house and continues until they reach the cliffs, still not allowing the audience to see Heloise’s face or body. This differs from the typical male gaze introduction we would receive of a woman. For example, The Postman Always Rings Twice (Garnett, 1946) introduces its female lead through a shot of her legs before a wider shot continues showing off her body wearing revealing clothing. Noel Carroll writes of Mulvey’s theory in terms of staging; he explains that “scenes are blocked, paced, and staged, and the camera is set up relative to that blocking in order to maximise the display of the female form” (Carroll, 1990, p. 351) and this is certainly the case for Garnett, however, not for Portrait of a Lady on Fire. By denying the audience the satisfaction of seeing Heloise’s face or body, Sciamma rejects the typical over-sexualised relationship between spectator and female character while, at the same time, on screen, Heloise also rejects the possibility for Marianne to objectify her.
The scene continues as the two walk along the cliffs, cutting back and forth between a medium shot of Marianne and a point of view shot of her looking at the back of Heloise, continuing to merge the spectator’s gaze with Marianne’s. Because of this fusion of the gaze, it is important to understand the nature of Marianne’s looks towards Heloise in order to also understand the nature of the look from the audience. At this point in the film, we can presume that Marianne’s looks are not yet fueled by desire, they are merely an attempt to see her face so that she can recreate it. Therefore, we may liken this gaze to the gazes of Marianne’s female students at the start of the film. The opening scene begins with a series of looks: young female painters looking at Marianne and drawing her. Over a montage of their hands and their faces, we hear Marianne instructing the painters to start with her contours, her outline, take time to look at me. We may at first think that the instruction to gaze at a woman’s contours is misogynistic but what is important in this scene is the purpose behind these looks. The looks from the students are objective not erotic, they look at Marianne’s body for the purpose of recreating it on a canvas, not for the purpose of possessing it. We could therefore suggest that Marianne’s looks at Heloise on the beach have the same innocent intent and subsequently, so does the spectator because we share her gaze. Once again, Sciamma offers a progressive alternative to the male gaze. In ‘Deconstructing the Filmmaker’s Gaze’, Maria Garcia and Sciamma talk about this scene in comparison to the progression of the narrative. They point out that “significantly, when Marianne’s ‘looking’ approaches desire, there is surprisingly little difference in the choice of shots; eroticism is minimized, making objectification nearly impossible” (Garcia & Sciamma, 2019, p. 8). Therefore, even though the nature behind the looks between Marianne and Heloise change from one of impartiality to desire, the intent remains the same, her look is not the ‘male gaze’ that Mulvey talks about, rather it isone of love and respect.
In an interview with the cinematographer, Claire Mathon, Yonca Talu asks about the cliff-top scene where Marianne finally sees Heloise’s face. The camera pans from Marianne’s gaze to Heloise’s, and Mathon says that “the camera becomes a human observer there and moves in rhythm with the actresses” (Talu, 2020). Once again, this works in contradiction to Mulvey’s theory: in this moment, the camera is not an intrusive device used to objectify the women on screen; instead, the camera works with them and is part of their on-screen dance. Mathon says that at first, they wanted to use a Steadicam operator for the exterior scenes but quickly decided against this because she wanted to frame the shots herself, noting that “they were not only meant to embody the character’s gazes but also Celine’s and mine” (Talu, 2020) suggesting that the nature of the spectator’s gaze is also related to the filmmaker’s gaze.
In one scene, Marianne and Heloise lie in bed together, naked. Most of their bodies are obscured by the bed sheets apart from Heloise’s breasts. Sciamma says that “we share this intimacy; they are both in the frame. They’re naked but they’re not exposed; even the way their breasts are flat against their chests is natural” (Garcia & Sciamma, 2019, p. 11) So despite Heloise’s chest being exposed, she is not objectifiedby those behind the camera because she is presented in a realistic way rather than in a sexual way. This progression past Mulvey and Berger’s theory is also achieved through the framing because the camera remains objectively wide and still. In a similar frame of mind to Mulvey, John Berger’s Ways of Seeingtalks about how women are presented visually in art (which also relates to cinema). He says that art was made by men, for men, and women are put on display, often nude, to be seen and judged by them (Berger, 1972, p. 64) but Sciamma avoids this through her feministic portrayal of the actress’ nudity. As she points out, the camera is “not travelling around the body. There is no editing in that scene” (Garcia & Sciamma, 2019, p.11) to explicit close ups of their bodies. Because Sciamma’s intention for this scene is “not to objectify or sexualise” (Garcia & Sciamma, 2019, p.11), the gaze elicited by the camera or those behind the camera is “not at all voyeuristic” (Garcia & Sciamma, 2019, p.11).
After the nude wide shot, the camera cuts to a close up of Heloise’s fingers in Marianne’s armpits, perhaps a piece of ironic commentary by Sciamma on how women’s bodies are usually presented in Hollywood, making fun of the stereotypical gaze elicited by lesbian love scenes. It comes as no surprise that Sciamma chooses to subvert the typical male gaze in her film because of her background of feminism. In an article for the BFI, Isabel Stevens writes that Sciamma was “one of the organisers of the 2018 Cannes protest, when 82 women gathered on the red carpet to draw attention to the festival’s record of ignoring female directors” (Stevens, 2020). Because of her active feminism, it is clear that her gaze is certainly female and progressive. We can see this where Marianne and Heloise kiss after the armpit shot: a slow and intimate moment, showing the importance of closeness, intimacy, and touch rather than genitalia. Through this approach, Sciamma ensures that both her gaze and the gaze of the spectator remains active rather than reactive. She explains that “the female gaze is mostly about sharing the experience of the character and having a very active gaze because when women are objectified, the gaze is reactive” (Garcia & Sciamma, 2019, p. 11). Therefore, Portrait of a Lady on Fire elicits an active gaze from its audience because not only is Sciamma’s gaze (through the camera) female and feminist, but so is the spectator’s because weshare in the intimate moments, rather than remaining reactive, observing them from afar.
Another aspect of Mulvey’s theory stems from the idea of castration, explaining that whenever men see women on screen they are reminded about the threat of their own castration and loss of masculinity (Mulvey, 1975, p.47). Shohini Chaudhuri (in his writings on feminist film theorists) summaries Mulvey’s solutions this explaining how men are able to experience visual pleasure despite this threat. He writes that the first way of re-asserting control over the threat of castration is to re-enact the trauma through voyeurism while the second option is to disavow castration through fetishism. (Chaudhuri, 2006, p. 36). Ultimately in order for men to get rid of the fear of castration they must either adopt a voyeuristic gaze over women or turn them into fetish objects. If we were to adopt these ideas when looking at Portrait of a Lady on Fire, however, they do not seem to apply. As quoted by Sciamma earlier, the audience member is drawn in as part of the scene, they do not remain an outsider and so they cannot be a voyeur. Not only this, but the gazes within the film are also not voyeuristic, they are consensual. Halfway through the film, Heloise is asleep next to Sophie while Marianne begins to draw her. What could perhaps at first be read as a voyeuristic gaze soon transforms when Heloise wakes up and poses for her, staring right back at her. In this moment, Heloise gives Marianne her consent to look at her and to paint her. It is a moment of equality between the two lovers and their looks.
In her article, ‘Don’t Regret. Remember’, Paris A. Spies-Gans talks of the equality and consent within the film noting that “in the Comtesse’s absence, Heloise and Marianne establish new modes of equality as they slowly become lovers” (Spies-Gans, 2020) and we can also see this in another scene where Marianne is painting Heloise’s portrait and points out that they are in the same place: “If you look at me, who do I look at?”. This pivotal moment tells us that the two women are equal, they share the same gazes as each other, neither holds more power over the other. Gwendolyn Smith, in her article on the female gaze, notes that the collaboration between Heloise and Marianne reportedly mirrored the film’s creative process between Mathon and Sciamma as they developed a newfound equality between director and cinematographer (Smith, 2020). Therefore, it seems that both the gazes on camera and behind the camera were consensual which differs greatly to the one-sided voyeuristic gaze suggested by Mulvey. This calls Mulvey’s castration theory into question. In fact, Noel Carroll also points out a flaw with this idea of castration and voyeurism saying that “voyeurs require unwary victims for their intrusive gaze [but] films are made to be seen and film actors willingly put themselves on display” (Carroll, 1990, p. 353). Perhaps then, a voyeuristic gaze can only be adopted by the spectator when the actors are unaware that they were being filmed in an erotic way or were not consensual. However, this view too does not seem to completely hold up in either classical cinema or modern because as Mulvey points out the act of men sitting in a dark room somewhat isolated, looking onto the women on screen is in itself an act of voyeurism. (Mulvey, 1975, p. 60) Perhaps we could conclude that there are two types of voyeurism: one gaze set on an unknowing performer and one through the circumstances of the spectator. We have already established that both actresses were consensual and so Sciamma subverts this gaze. As for the voyeuristic spectator, this would be correct if the women were presented in a way where pleasure was derived from being a voyeur but as we have established, the women on screen and off are consensual and respectful and so Sciamma also subverts this gaze, replacing it with a female, feminist one.
Mulvey puts forward another way of looking at cinema, in contrast to scopophilia, attributing the pleasurable look to narcissism. She explains, through the workings of Jacques Lacan, that the moment a child looks in the mirror and recognises themselves is important in developing the ego (Mulvey, 1975, p. 60). She develops Lacan’s theory further suggesting that the pleasure received from watching cinema has “developed through narcissism and the constitution of the ego” (Mulvey, 1975, p. 61). The male spectator identifies their own ego with the male protagonist on screen because of his “fascination with and recognition of his like” (Mulvey, 1975, p.61) and so when the male protagonist on screen gazes at a woman with desire, or is able to possess her sexually, so does the spectator. However, this theory brings up certain immediate problems because it presumes that only men are watching cinema and seeing themselves represented on screen. Of course, this contradicts greatly with Portrait of a Lady on Firebecause, as we have already established, there is no male protagonist so what is there for men to relate to? Shohini Chaudhuri puts forward an interesting solution to the problems within Mulvey’s theory in his writings on the queer and female spectator. Chaudhuri suggests that “lesbian spectators… might (and do) gain pleasure from viewing a woman take the man’s place as the active pursuer of a romance” (Chaudhuri, 2006, p. 78). Perhaps this is the case with Sciamma’s film; because there are no men present, male spectators are denied the male gaze. Instead Sciamma develops a new more democratic gaze aimed towards queer women. With this new gaze in mind, we may analyse Marianne and Heloise’s first intimate scene. It begins with a wide shot as Marianne walks up to Heloise and places her head on her shoulder while Heloise responds by wrapping her arms around her. The camera then cuts to a medium shot of their faces wrapped around each other. Claire Mathon, says in her interview with Talu, that they “weave their heads around each other like swans” (Talu, 2020), an image that came to Sciamma early, wanting a “sensitive approach to filming female faces [which] evoked the cinema of Bergman, who excelled at depicting women and their bonds” (Talu, 2020).
In this scene, the lighting is warm and inviting, and paired with the image of beautiful swans wrapped around each other, Sciamma creates an incredibly romantic and intimate atmosphere as they kiss each other. Then the camera cuts to the next morning. Sciamma chooses not to show an explicit sex scene between the two and in doing so she avoids the typical male eroticism associated with lesbian love scenes. Instead, she creates a moment of women, for women. Chaudhuri notes that “Lesbianism holds a primary attraction for feminism because it appears to reclaim for women a specifically female desire… it means being the active subject of desire, of one’s own desire, rather than to be desired (by men)” (Chaudhuri, 2006, p. 81). So, through the sensitive camerawork and mere act of having two women on screen, Marianne and Heloise reclaim their desire for themselves and create a new queer, female gaze. Chaudhuri goes on to talk about the work of De Lauretis, a feminist critic who writes in contrast to Freud (and therefore subsequently Mulvey) in her understanding of the castration theory. She explains that “lesbian fetishism arises out of love of femininity rather than fear of it” (Chaudhuri, 2006, p. 86) therefore the queer gaze does not seek to fetishize or possess women, rather it is born out of respect and admiration for the female form. Portrait of a Lady on Fire combines a feministic female gaze with a queer gaze resulting in the production of something uniquely new. As Gwendolyn Smith summaries: “in focussing on the emotional build-up rather than the sex itself, Sciamma eroticises the character’s feelings rather than her actors’ bodies” (Smith, 2020). Sciamma’s female gaze negates the typical “titillating cinematic conventions” (Syme, 2020) which Rachel Syme points out in her writing on the sex scenes. Instead, the queer gaze evoked by the spectator allows for the intimate scenes to have romantic pay off while still remaining respectful.
One last aspect of the male gaze that I would like to delve into is the idea of the ‘show girl’. Mulvey says that “the device of the show-girl allows the two looks [between man on screen and male spectator] to be unified” (Mulvey, 1975, p. 62). Mulvey explains that the trope of a performing woman is used so that the audience’s gaze can align with the man on screen because they watch her in the same way. (Mulvey, 1975, p. 62). Ultimately, the purpose of this is to eroticise the woman performing, put her literally on a stage to be looked at without interrupting the narrative. (Mulvey, 1975, p.62). It is then interesting that Sciamma includes a ‘performance’ scene. When the women go to see about Sophie’s abortion, many other women are also present, gathered around a fire. They begin to sing off screen while the camera lingers on Heloise. Women cross in front of her and walk off to the right before the camera cuts to follow them. Weslowly pan to the right as more and more women join in; the framing remains in a medium shot throughout, resisting the typical close-ups that would have been used to add erotic subtexts to the scene. We can see There’s No Business Like Show Business (Lang, 1954) as an example of a traditional way in which music and singing is used to objectify women. Monroe dances for a room of people performing ‘After You Get What You Want You Don’t Want It’, wearing a partially see-through white dress with a high slit up the side. The camera remains wide to show off her body, occasionally cutting to the men in the room, exaggerating their gazes. At one point, she turns to the side and puts her leg up on someone’s chair to purposefully show the camera. It is clear that this scene has been filmed for men to look at Monroe as an object of desire, aligning the gaze of the men on screen with the spectator. Portrait of a Lady on Fire actively rejects this stereotype because the camera does not linger on body parts or show the women in provocative clothes, it has not been made for a male spectator.
This leads us back to a problem with Mulvey’s theory: her absence of the concept of the female spectator. Chaudhuri points out in his analysis of Mulvey’s work that it is unclear whether the female spectator responds in the same way as the male, is she too forced to objectify and erotically possess the women on screen? (Chaudhuri, 2006, p. 39). He explains that in Mulvey’s ‘Afterthoughts on Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, she addresses the issue: “the female spectator might enjoy the fantasy of control and freedom over the narrative… she can cross the lines of gender in her identification with the male hero because her gender is itself divided” (Chaudhuri, 2006, p. 40). Yet this explanation comes across as an old-fashioned afterthought. Mulvey is suggesting that the only way women can look at cinema is through a desire to be just as controlling as men, they are not able to hold their own female gaze, and this certainly does not apply to Portrait. The gazes between Marianne and Heloise are consensual so even if a female spectator were able to align their gaze with one female character in an attempt to possess the other, this still could not be achieved. The same can also be said for the spectator looking at the singing women: the gaze held by the camera is not erotic and so the gaze from the spectator cannot be either. In fact, in this scene, once the camera has established where the singing is coming from, these women are no longer the object of the gaze, they are merely used to exaggerate the burning desire between Marianne and Heloise rather than to accommodate for the desire of the spectator. The camera cuts to a series of looks shared between Marianne and Heloise where the dramatic music (which is rarely used in the film) crescendos expressing their peaking desire for each other. Sciamma has successfully subverted this typical ‘show-girl’ trope by turning it into a moment of equal, romantic gazes between two women, and a third equal female spectator.
To conclude, it is clear that Sciamma has achieved a new more democratic kind of gaze both within her film and by those watching. Mulvey’s theory of Scopophilia, castration and narcissism was a ground-breaking theory when it was first published and certainly in terms of classical Hollywood it did have a high degree of merit, although in the face of modern, progressive cinema, her ideas do not entirely hold together. Her initial denial for the possibility of a female spectator (and of course also a queer spectator) and her subsequent failure to create a convincing argument for such a gaze does not relate to Portrait. This certainly is as a positive though; it means that the gazes elicited from films have become more varied. It shows that Portrait of a Lady on Fire has successfully surpassed the patriarchal constraints that used to surround classical cinema. Claire Johnston created a promising argument in 1973 for how feminist counter-cinema needed to infiltrate mainstream film in order to destroy the male gaze. She writes in her Notes on Women’s Cinema, the need to introduce female desire and fantasy into Hollywood and stop catering to the male spectator (Johnston, 1973) and this is certainly what Sciamma has achieved in her film which is rooted in feminism, equality and above all, consensual gazes.
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