#wk 7

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Week 7: Queer Women Power Up - Lesbian Romance in Period Dramas

“Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction and fiction just as intriguing as the facts that inspire its inventions” - (“Historical Fictions, Modern Desires” 70)

While watching Cheryl Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman (1996), I was immediately reminded of the current cinematic phenomenon of lesbian period dramas. I will be focusing this week’s scrapbook on this cinematic sub-genre due to its rising popularity and increasing presence within queer film. Dunye, however, explores this sub-genre through fictional historical archival footage while the films I will be analyzing purely live within their respective time period. In the article, “Claiming Lesbian History: The Romance Between Fact and Fiction,” Linda Garber claims that “lesbian history has always been a self-aware field of historiographical creation as much as historical discovery” (Garber 129). Within the last decade or so, the idea of placing lesbian relationships within a period setting, has become more and more prevalent on screen. Garber also states that “based on traces of evidence, provocative images, cherished gossip—or nothing at all but fantastical desire—lesbians writing in English in more than a hundred novels and a handful of films provide fictional historical accounts of a wide ranging cast of marauding pirates, civil war scouts, western bandits, homesteading pioneers, suffragists, schoolteachers, wealthy ladies, working class servants, prostitutes, and shopkeepers—all of whom enjoy fabulous, orgasmic sex with other women” (Garber 130-131). In some cases, like The Favourite (2018), these films are based on real life historical figures whose sexualities and romantic relationships were merely a matter of hearsay, allowing the imagination to run wild. Lesbian romance in period dramas has become increasingly popular, even making its way into the mainstream. Both The Favourite (2018) and Carol (2015), two sapphic period pieces, were nominated for multiple Academy Awards, including Best Picture. The Favourite’s Olivia Coleman even won the Oscar for Best Actress in 2019. However, this sub-genre tends to be anything but intersectional, usually only providing representation for white cis-gender queer women. 

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Week 7: Marianne & Héloïse

“Do all lovers feel they’re inventing something?” - Héloïse (Adèle Haenel)

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), or Portrait de la jeune fille en feu, lit as it’s called in French, is a French historical lesbian romance drama by Céline Sciamma, who wrote and directed the film. Sciamma herself is an out lesbian, as well as Adèle Haenel who stars in the film, and is known for her films about gender fluidity and sexual identity, usually surrounding girls and women. Portrait of a Lady on Fire was arguably the most talked about and critically acclaimed queer film of 2019, and my personal favorite film of last year. I was completely awestruck by the film the first time I saw it. It is quiet, nuanced, and hauntingly beautiful with an ending that tore my heart out. Portrait of a Lady on Fire is set in 18th century France and follows the forbidden love affair between an aristocrat, who refuses to marry, and a painter who is commissioned to paint the young aristocrat’s portrait. The two develop a deep, unusual relationship which eventually becomes romantic over the course of the painting’s completion. During 18th century France, “emphasized femininity, or a version of womanhood that is ‘defined around compliance with this subordination and is oriented to accommodating the interests and desires of men’” is exactly what was expected of a young woman (Sheff 255). Sciamma challenges these very expectations and presents an alternative. Of course, as the time would never allow, the two women do not end up together but are left to remain simply as fond distant memories. I chose this film because it depicts a relationship that isn’t merely about sex but rather emotional tenderness and infatuation. 

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Reviews from Letterboxd

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Week 7: Carol & Therese

“What use am I to anyone, to her, if I’m living against my grain?” - Carol (Cate Blanchett) 

Carol (2015) is a romantic drama based on the 1952 novel, The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith. It is directed by Todd Haynes, one of New Queer Cinema’s pioneering filmmakers. The film is set in 1952 and tells the story of, yes yet another, forbidden love affair. This time the affair is between a young aspiring female photographer, Therese, and Carol, a middle-aged woman in the midst of a challenging divorce. In many ways Carol could be seen as a predecessor to Portrait of a Lady on Fire as their stories are quite similar. In her essay, “Polyamorous Women, Sexual Subjectivity and Power,” Elizabeth Sheff writes that “a woman is neither the product of her circumstances (a victim) nor the producer of her world (a powerful female), but rather she is both.” (Sheff 255). The film’s central character, Carol, is a wealthy, seemingly self-assured older woman. This affluence and social status gives her power yet her hidden queerness still haunts her. At its core, Carol is a story of forbidden love in the face of privilege. Carol and Therese’s relationship is eventually exposed and thus, they, too, are not given a happy ending. Just like Marianne and Héloïse, they must go their separate ways and remain relics of the past to be stored away in each other’s minds. Carol’s depiction of lust and sexual curiosity lives within the gaze and body language of each character. A simple look can give away anything and everything all at once. Due to time period and circumstance, these women must be careful with their desire for each other, as if the well-being of their lives depend on it.

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Reviews from Letterboxd