This week we have a new blog contribution from Eli S, discussing two films that feature the “lesbian sublime.” Eli S is a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature in Germany.
THE LESBIAN SUBLIME in PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE (2019) and AMMONITE (2020)
by Eli S.
Introduction
A man is standing at the edge of a ragged cliff, staring at a mountainous scenery heavily covered by fog, seeking refuge in the remote edge of nature to nurture his imagination and promote his individuality. Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (Casper David Friedrich, 1817) is a signature image of the Romantic period to represent the masculine side of nature, calling it the sublime. Only, the masculine sublime found its meaning in a dichotomous relationship with the feminine beautiful.
Edmund Burke compared the sublime to the beautiful, calling the first an indicator of “pain and terror” (1844, 82) and the latter “smooth” (1844, 151) and “milder” (1844, 147). For Burke, the sublime “is associated with an experience of masculine empowerment; its contrasting term, the beautiful, is associated with an experience of feminine nurturance, love, and sensuous relaxation” (Mellor 1993, 85). Emanuel Kant also distinguished the sublime from the beautiful through its formless “limitlessness” (Kant 2007,75). In this equation, Romantic women authors domesticated the sublime in their gothic novels, relying upon the masculine terror and annihilation attached to it (Mellor 1993, 91). Mellor refers to the gothic novels of Ann Radcliffe in which “the deepest terror aroused by the masculine sublime originates in the exercise of patriarchal authority within home” and not in nature (Mellor 1993, 93). Gothic female authors subverted the masculine sublime by moving women from the domestic home and placing them in the wild to explore subversive desires. Gothic’s fertile ground for subversion and suppressed emotions makes it a convenient genre to express non-normative sexualities. “Gothic narrative often includes in its cast of characters representatives of the monstrous and the abject, and it is woman – and particularly the woman who identifies as lesbian or forms primary relationships with members of her own sex – who tends to be assigned these roles” (Palmer 1999, 14). Accordingly, Ann Radcliffe’s gothic fiction, with female characters at the center of it, has been read as a lesbian narrative. “Radcliffe and her female peers introduce a number of motifs which, though not specifically lesbian, lend themselves to lesbian adaptation” (Palmer 1999, 10).
Setting the films in the sublime sceneries ––castle, caves, coasts–– to unfold the lesbian love stories, Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Celine Sciamma, 2019) and Ammonite (Francis Lee, 2020) openly claim the sublime as lesbian when the women harness its power and limitlessness and project their subversive sexuality to it. The lesbian sublime hand-picks the features of the sublime, only to unfold the lesbian desire within the sublime spaces in the films. Within the lesbian sublime, gender, sexual, and social class hierarchies collapse as women navigate the interior and exterior spaces freely without interruptions imposed by unwanted male pressure. Nature welcomes as much as it overwhelms, and the ruins and remains appear as undefined spaces for women to express their desires and rewrite their sexual politics.
Figure 1 Wanderer above the see of fog (1817) courtesy of Hamburg Kunsthalle
Castle and Cave in the Lesbian Sublime: Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Portrait is set in a gothic castle on a French island. The castle in Portrait appears as both a conventional gothic space and an unorthodox structure. With its mysteries, secrets, subversive structure, and desires, in the castle of Portrait, we see the distortion of the patriarchal authority,the collapse of social order, and the transgression of sexual assumptions. As a gothic space, the castle appears “‘mysterious, [… and] hides some family secrets the revelation of which usually helps the heroine to disclose her own identity” (Raškauskienė 2009, 53-54). Replacing the hetero-patriarchal image of the castle with a female-centric society, the castle also provides a utopic social class order with Heloise, the noblewoman, Marianne, the intellectual artist, and Sophie, the working-class maid. Placing the women in artist and model positions, Portrait’s heroines, Marianne and Heloise, engage in a lesbian romance as they recognize their subversive desire.
Portrait extends this subversion also to caves and cliffs along the coast where mystery, terror, and death of the sublime haunt the women and yet expose their lesbian desire. The sublime in Portrait reflects Heloise’s rage against the imposed marriage on her, her sister’s suicide to escape the marriage, Marianne’s secret mission on the island as the commissioned artist, and eventually, the subversive desire that grows gradually between them. By unfolding these emotions within the sublime, the film opts for an unfamiliar set of devices to unfold lesbian love and subjectivity in conventionally male-dominated spaces.
The overwhelming setting of Portrait empowers rebellious intentions and promises the flourishing of a subversive desire and the growth of physical intimacy between Marianne and Heloise. The women hold hands as they help each other climb the rocks and eventually kiss at a cave in a mountainous area for the first time. Kathy A. Fedorko recognizes caves and cabins as “female-identified” places to safeguard the female character from male intrusion (2017, 18). The masculinization of the space and the imposed hetero-patriarchy draw the female figures in gothic fiction to seek alternative spaces away from male control or violence, and the abandoned caves and cabins provide a safe refuge for women to express their suppressed desires and rewrite their sexual politics.
Figure 2 Frame grab of Portrait: Marianne and Heloise walking along the cliffs
Figure 3 Frame grab of Portrait: Marianne and Heloise kissing at the cave
Coast and Cabin in the Lesbian Sublime: Ammonite
Ammonite similarly unfolds the lesbian love story within the sublime scenery of the coast, rocks, and cliffs. Ammonite is set in 19th-century England and narrates the story of Mary Anning (Kate Winslet), the famous fossil hunter who hosts Charlotte (Saoirse Ronan), an aristocratic young woman suffering from melancholia. As Charlotte accompanies Mary to the coast, the women gradually develop a romantic relationship as they hunt for fossils together.
Ammonite presents the home similar to the Radcliffean gothic novel where “greatest evil women must fear comes from within the sanctified family, […] The home may be a man’s castle but women are no more secure there than the savage wilds of nature” (Mellor 1993, 94). Although Charlotte’s mansion is not a conventional gothic space, as a hetero-patriarchal home, it is deprived of safety and sanity for its female resident. Her short residence in Mary’s house, promises the growth of intimacy and lays the groundwork for Charlotte and Mary to recognize a common ground and subvert its conventions through their subversive desire. The film transcends the gender and sexual assumptions of the sublime and establishes a lesbian sublime where women’s emotional, physical, and intellectual needs are nurtured.
Figure 4 Frame grab of Ammonite: Mary and Charlotte hunt rocks at the coast.
Figure 5 Frame grab of Ammonite: Charlotte’s cabin to heal melancholia.
References
Burke, Edmund (1844), A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful: With an Introductory Discourse Concerning Taste, New York: Harper & Brothers.
Fedorko, Kathy A ( 2017), Gender and the Gothic in the Fiction of Edith Wharton, Alabama: University of Alabama Press.
Kant, Immanuel (2007), Critique of Judgement, Oxford; New York: OUP Oxford.
Mellor, Anne K (1993), Romanticism & Gender, New York: Routledge.
Morris, David B (1985) Gothic Sublimity, New Literary History 16 (2): 299–319. https://doi.org/10.2307/468749.
Palmer Paulina (1999) Lesbian Gothic: Transgressive Fictions, 1. publ. London: Cassell.
Raškauskienė Audronė (2009), Gothic Fiction: The Beginnings. Kaunas: VMU Press.
Filmography
Ammonite. (2020). Directed by Francis Lee. England: See-Saw Films
Persona. (1966). Directed by Ingmar Bergman. S-F Production Company.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire. (2019). Directed by Celine Sciamma. France: Lilies Films