What Portrait of a Lady on Fire Tells Us About 'the Gaze'

This is one big double entendre! Also pronouncing Sartre's name will be the death of me!

Other notable gaze theorists: Laura Mulvey, bell hooks, Jacques Lacan, Edward Said (kind of)

Music:
Arthur Simonini - La Jeune Fille en Feu
Wojciech Kilar - "Vocalise"
Vivaldi - "Viola d'amore Concerto in A minor RV 397", Accademia Bizantina
"Ode to Aphrodite" from "The Ancient Greek Lyre"
Vivaldi - Violin Concerto in G Minor, RV 315 "L'estate": I. Allegro

[ratgirl]

This movie felt too targeted because I'm a painter, french, and a lesbian

[rachelb]

Honestly when Adèle turned around for the first time, I felt pinned to my seat by her gaze. There’s such intensity in her eyes

[charlie]

"The first feminist gesture is to say: Ok. They’re looking at me. But I’m looking at them. The act of deciding to look, of deciding that the world is not defined by how people see me, but by how I see them.” – Agnès Varda

[rilke]

When Marianne sees the page number 28 on Héloïse's portrait in the art gallery, I died.

[songbird]

“She didn’t see me” is still the saddest line I’ve ever heard

[gracejewett]

I didn't cry until Heloise goes from jamming out to crying to laugh-crying to just reminiscing at the end at the orchestra... then I let it all out

[larrykoss]

Touched my heart more than any other film in my 78 years of life. Thank you for this gift!

[kaileyparts]

This movie hit me so hard since I’m literally gay and a painter

[rohandatta]

when marianne says "he doesn't make the lover's choice, but the poet's ", I cried like a kid

[camille_la_chenille]

There is also this scene, just before Marianne sees the portrait of Heloïse with her son and the book, where she speaks with an art critic about her painting of Orpheus and Eurydice. The man said that Opheus seemed to wawe a farewell to Eurydice and she seemed to respond. It echoes the scene when the three women are reading the myth and one of them said that it was maybe Eurydice who asked Orpheus to look at her, to choose her memory upon her life. And it is exactly what happens when Héloïse asks Marianne to turn back one last time, to choose her memory.
And sorry for my poor English, it's not my first language, neither my second in fact.

[camshifft]

This movie is literally the most intense and amazing love story I know. The references to Eurydice and Orpheus make it even more tragic than it already is. I went to see it with my mom, and she complained about it being predictable and long, but it’s inevitably and the characters’ will to stop time is what moved me so much. It basically works like a Greek tragedy. I just love this movie and it deserves more praise.

[marliw]

I was so relieved when the voiceover started and it was a woman. What you were saying about equality in a relationship really rang true for me. In relationships with men, I always feel like an object because culturally, the equality isn’t there. I only feel at peace when I can surround myself by female perspectives.

[katiearthofer]

Your point of remembering desire through memory reminds me of the Heloise says one day Marianne will think of the picture she drew in bed more than before thinking of Heloise herself.

[jylyhughes]

The most gorgeous film I have ever gazed upon

[kanellita]

you: not the gays
me, every time you said gaze: GaYs

[directorblack]

between your recent parasite analysis and this, you are quickly becoming one of my favorite media analysts on youtube. it's wonderful see a voice and mind like yours put in video essay form, and extra wonderful to see that you seem to start to be uploading once again after some kind of hiatus. (i obviously don't know what happened but i hope you were doing fine and not facing burnout.)

i really look forward to whatever you have planned for this channel. keep up the great work!

[vloggetts]

When you said how the film is ultimately about the relationship between painter and muse, it reminded me of something. Actress Adèle Haenel (Héloïse ) also starred in Sciamma's debut movie and the two became a couple sometime after but separated before the filming of Portrait of a Lady on Fire. So the two of them would be able to understand firsthand the complicated relationship between muse and artist

[hamitr.janani]

Better the movie we watch, worst we feel afterwards
I've seen this two days ago and i can't stop crying.

[steph]

This is an extremely well-thought-out, captivating, smart, and accurate analysis.

[angelicaamora]

I laughed so hard when u were like

"Tha gaze"
Me "the gays??" :0
"No, the 𝘨𝘢𝘻𝘦"

LMFAOOOO