For a fluid approach to Céline Sciamma's Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Abstract

This paper argues that Céline Sciamma's Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) goes beyond the lesbian or queer categorization that critics have often hastily reduced it to. Set in pre-revolutionary France, Portrait is a film from 'the 2019th century' (Sciamma) that addresses contemporary issues (consent, patriarchal and heteronormative order, women's silencing, women's desire and sexuality). It offers a reflection on 'fluid' time and historicizes and archives both disappeared women artists and same-sex women's relations in French painting and cinema. Sciamma reeducates her spectators’ (male) gaze, precludes voyeurism and the objectification and fetishization of her heroines’ bodies, bestows agency upon them, and displays equality and respect in both form and content. Despite its Queer Palme award at Cannes, Portrait calls for a qualifier better suited to our changing times, as this fluid approach attempts to show.