• Title/Summary/Keyword: Portrait of a Lady on Fire

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Gaze and Gender Dynamics of Portrait of a Lady on Fire (<타오르는 여인의 초상>의 시선과 젠더의 동학)

  • Kwon, Eunsun
    • The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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    • v.8 no.3
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    • pp.399-404
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    • 2022
  • Céline Sciamma is a leading female director of her time. She is constantly making works on the subject of women. It can be said that it has pioneered a 'female narrative'. In particular, it shows a unique perspective in dealing with the complexities surrounding the formation of a girl's sexual identity and the influence of peer culture on individuals. In Portrait of a Lady on Fire, 'The Handmaiden', 'The Painter', and 'The Maid' show the solidarity of women without hierarchies in a liberated space where the patriarch is absent, showing a feminist interpretation of classics and a self-reflecting consciousness of women's historical records. Based on the setting of drawing, this film explores the genderization of gaze, gaze and objectification, issues of seeing and power, etc. constructed throughout the history of visual arts. The portrait work of Heloise and Marianne in the film deconstructs the formula of 'a male painter as a viewer and a female model who gazes at herself through the male gaze' and turns the gaze into an interactive process of giving and receiving. The process of exchanging gazes is sealed with a nude painting in which Marianne's face is superimposed on Heloise's body. This overturns the nude painting as the dominant form of engraving the male audience's position in the image through the stylization of the viewing method in the history of Western painting with the erotic gaze of a lesbian in an instant.