Corporeality and Imageness, Intermediality and Intersensuality in Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.34629/rcdmt.vol.2.n.1.pp91-105Keywords:
Intermediality, Intersensuality, The female gaze, Corporeality, ImagenessAbstract
Céline Sciamma’s 2019 romantic drama film places in focus painterly representation accompanied by the female gaze. It addresses femininity not only by employing almost exclusively female characters, but eminently by delving into the power of the female gaze. Departing from the possibilities of intersectional analysis (Wilson 2021), this article proposes to think further on the ways in which the female gaze is related to intermediality and intersensuality, inviting the senses and the other arts to a symbiotic dialogue. In the connection between painting and film, the collaboration of the painter Hélène Delmaire is also investigated. Sciamma’s work dramatizes the process of becoming an image, implying objectification, and the role of the female perception and attachment in resisting to it. The process of painting becomes a mediator in processing emotions, giving voice to the unspeakable in an overflow of sensations and intermedial transformations.
Downloads
References
Autoportrait / Self-Portrait. 1630. Painted by Judith Leyster. Oil on canvas, 74.6 cm x 65.1 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. [Painting]
Autoportrait / Self-Portrait. 1790. Painted by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun. Oil on canvas, 100 cm x 81cm. The Uffizi. [Painting]
Belting, Hans. 2011. An Anthropology of Images. Picture, Medium, Body. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Beugnet, Martine and Laura Mulvey. 2015. “Film, Corporeality, Transgressive Cinema: A Feminist Perspective.” In Feminisms: Diversity, Difference and Multiplicity in Contemporary Film Cultures, edited by Laura Mulvey and Anna Backman Rogers, 187–202. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Crary, Jonathan. 1988. “Techniques of the Observer.” October, vol. 45 (Summer): 3–35.
Danaë. 1544−1546. Painted by Titian. 120 cm x 172 cm. National Museum Capodimonte, Naples. (original version of 6 existing versions, all painted by Titian). [Painting]
Dávid, Ádám. 2008. “Montage of Scents. Intermediality and ‘Intersensuality’ in Patrick Süskind’s and Tom Tykwer’s Perfume.” In Words and Images on the Screen: Language, Literature, Moving Pictures, edited by Ágnes Pethő, 89–103. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Delmaire, Hélène. 2013. Cocon. In series “Nus”. https://useum.org/artwork/Cocon-Helene-Delmaire-2013. Last accessed 15 April 2024. [Painting]
----. 2015–2017. Eyeless. Portrait series. Last accessed 18 November 2024. [Painting]
----. Hélène Delmaire Website. https://www.helenedelmaire.com/pages/a-proposabout/?base_folder=/. Last accessed 18 November 2024.
Földényi F., László. 2010. Képek előtt állni. Adalékok a látás újkori történetéhez. [Standing in front of Pictures. Contributions to the Modern History of Vision]. Bratislava: Kalligram.
Femme Nue Endormie / Sleeping Nude. Painted by Gustave Courbet. Oil on canvas, 45 cm x 54.5 cm. National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo. [Painting]
Kittler, Friedrich. 2010. Optical Media. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Li, Yu. 2024. “The Art of Female Gaze and Emotional Expression: A Study of Portrait of a Lady on Fire.” Journal of Research in Social Science and Humanities, vol. 3, no. 11: 41–47.
Marks, Laura U. 2002. Touch: Sensuous Theory and Multisensory Media. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.
Pethő, Ágnes. 2023. “Tacita Dean’s Affective Intermediality: Precarious Visions in-between the Visual Arts, Cinema, and the Gallery Film.” Arts, vol. 12, no. 4, 168. https://doi.org/10.3390/arts12040168. Last accessed 18 November 2024.
Plantinga, Carl and Greg M. Smith. 1999. In Passionate Views. Film, Cognition, and Emotion, edited by Carl Plantinga and Greg. M. Smith. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Portrait d’une jeune femme / Portrait of a Young Woman. 1770–1779. Painted by Jean Honoré Fragonard. Oil on canvas, oval, 80.6 x 63.5 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. [Painting]
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1997 [1761]. Julie, or The New Heloïse. Translated and annotated by Philip Stewart and Jean Vaché. Lebanon: University Press of New England.
Scateni, Ren. 2020. How Portrait of a Lady on Fire Celebrates the Female Gaze. BFI 26 February. https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/portrait-lady-fire-female-gaze. Last accessed 18 November 2024.
Sciamma, Céline, dir. 2007. Naissance des pieuvres [Water Lilies], Lilies Films, Les Productions Balthazar. [Film]
----. 2011. Tomboy, Lilies Films, Arte France Cinéma and Hold Up Films. [Film]
----. 2014. Girlhood [Bande de filles], Lilies Films, Arte France Cinéma and Hold Up Films. [Film]
----. 2019. Portrait de la jeune fille en feu [Portrait of a Lady on Fire], Lilies Films, Arte France Cinéma and Hold Up Films. [Film]
----. “Director Céline Sciamma talks about her beautiful new film Portrait of a Lady on Fire.” HeyUGuys. Interview. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNIGRXPy7g0. Last accessed 15 April 2024.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1976. “Translator’s Preface.” In Of Grammatology, Jacques Derrida, ix–lxxxvii. Translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Limited.
Stevens, Isabel. 2020. “No Man’s Land: Céline Sciamma on Portrait of a Lady on Fire.” BFI March 3. https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/interviews/no-mans-land-celine-sciamma-portrait-lady-fire. Last accessed 18 November 2024.
Syme, Rachel. 2020. “‛Portrait of a Lady on Fire’ Is More Than a ‛Manifesto on the Female Gaze’.” The New Yorker March 4. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/portrait-of-a-lady-on-fire-is-more-than-a-manifesto-on-the-female-gaze. Last accessed 18 November 2024.
The Portrait of a Lady / Retrato de Uma Senhora. 1996. Directed by Jane Campion. Polygram Filmed Entertainment and Propaganda Films. [Film]
Vincze, Teréz. 2021. “Női érzékek – Rendezőnők nőalakjainak fenomenológiai olvasata” [“Feminine Senses – A Phenomenological Reading of Female Figures Created by Women Directors”]. Apertúra, vol. 16, no. 2 (Winter). https://www.apertura.hu/2021/tel/vincze-noi-erzekek-rendezonok-noalakjainak-fenomenologiai-olvasata/. Last accessed 18 November 2024.
Wilson, Emma. 2021. Céline Sciamma. Portraits. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 RHINOCERVS: Cinema, Dança, Música, Teatro

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Articles published or submitted to RHINOCERVS: Cinema, Dança, Música, Teatro are licensed according to Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY-NC 4.0). Authors agree that:
Copyrights of all articles published are retained by authors with first publication copyright granted to the journal.
All articles are under the Creative Commons Attribution License recognizing the authorship of the publication and identifying that first publication took place in this journal.
Authors have the right to free distribute or make available in private or institutional pages the version published by RHINOCERVS: Cinema, Dança, Música, Teatro provided the original proper citation.
The journal only accepts articles not published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. After published, the article cannot be published again partial or totally without the editorial board consent.