Abstract
The article investigates how recent biopics of eighteenth-century women can be seen to form and/or revise the cultural memory of the period, with a particular emphasis on how the individuals represented in biographical texts are portrayed as figures with which a modern audience can sympathize as the material is adapted for the screen. An analysis of changes that have been made in the adaptation processes of The Duchess (2009), A Royal Affair (2012), and The Scandalous Lady W (2015) shows some of the ways in which the concerns of the present are central to representations of the past. The cultural memory of eighteenth-century womanhood as constructed by and represented in biographical films of the past decade is inherently paradoxical: the almost exclusive focus on ‘scandalous’ women co-exists with consistent attempts to purge their life stories of elements that are regarded as scandalous today.
Highlights
Eli LøfaldliOur conceptions of a past we have not experienced are greatly reliant on the images produced of it on screen
The article investigates how recent biopics of eighteenth-century women can be seen to form and/or revise the cultural memory of the period, with a particular emphasis on how the individuals represented in biographical texts are portrayed as figures with which a modern audience can sympathize as the material is adapted for the screen
The Duchess, A Royal Affair, and The Scandalous Lady W all depict glamorous aristocratic and royal protagonists who were embroiled in scandalous love triangles in their day, and the analysis of the outcome of their adaptation processes shows that all three films single out this particular aspect of their lives and present it in the light of personal tragedy, impossible love, and the restrictions women faced in eighteenth-century society
Summary
Our conceptions of a past we have not experienced are greatly reliant on the images produced of it on screen. The Duchess, A Royal Affair, and The Scandalous Lady W all depict glamorous aristocratic and royal protagonists who were embroiled in scandalous love triangles in their day, and the analysis of the outcome of their adaptation processes shows that all three films single out this particular aspect of their lives and present it in the light of personal tragedy, impossible love, and the restrictions women faced in eighteenth-century society. This marks a distinct shift in the representation of eighteenth-century womanhood and sexuality as compared to that of the biographical texts upon which they are based. It seems that the scandal surrounding their lives is essential to why their stories are considered to be worth telling, but at the same time, many of the traits that have made them appear scandalous through the ages are noticeably absent from the films detailing their life stories
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