Post 7

In “Dirty Pictures, Mud Lust, and Abject Desire: Myths of Origin and Cinematic Object, Susan Felleman comments on how art is structured into narrative films. She discusses the idea of the reflexive qualities of artist biopics, with the presence of artwork further affirming the spectator/viewer’s consciousness as the viewer (increasing the viewer’s own self reflection), and moreover she writes about the representation of artist couples in film and the “myth of origins.” Felleman claims that art, in one way or another, is shown to be the love child of white, heterosexual artist couples in films such as Artemisia and Camille Claudel, and that these myths of the origin of art are metaphors for cinematic origin (the creation of film). Felleman writes:

“The art that seems to issue from this love, product of the erotic engagement, becomes the film itself. The narrative is a mythic one of cinematic origins—the couples personifying the ultimately erotic act of film making—that touches upon the peculiar sensibility of the film and its maker(s), be those involved with the quasi-pornographic experience of looking, the almost fetishistic interest in technique and handling, or heroic passions and the valorization of gesture and production” (39).


In her discussion of Camille Claudel and Artemisia, Felleman discusses both the erotic energy that “flows into the production of any art”(plastic and cinematic) and strengthens her argument by noting the mythic qualities present in both films: genius and muse, master and subject (as well as subject/object).
Felleman applies concepts of feminist theory to create a very strong argument. Though Felleman ultimately writes to address the metaphoric qualities of biopics’ portrayal of the origins of art (for the origin of cinema), like the essays of Vidal, Garrard, and Lent, Felleman discusses, to a large extent, the films’ construction of the artistic creation and the overall subject/object relationship between the older male artist teacher and the female artist couple, and the association of women with nature, uncontrollable, needing to be contained by the male.
Felleman notes how in one way or another, both Artemisia and Camille Claudel show the creation of art as highly sexualized and highlight the perception of women as uncontrollable, erratic beings. Psychosexual pathology, writes Felleman, avails itself in Gentileschi as scopophilia, love of looking, and Claudel as coprophilia, “madness of mud,” love of excrement.
Perhaps because I have viewed the film in full, the points Felleman makes about Artemisia in relation to the creation of film is especially strong. The element of lust for looking in Artemisia that Felleman writes about pervades the entire film. Sequences of looking and the presence of subject/object relationship are frequent in the film. Camera close- ups on Gentileschi’s eyes are numerous as are instances times of looking, spying; Artemisia watches in fascination as couple make love on the beach, probes a young male to undress for her, peers through a window to witness one of Tassi’s orgies, and is ultimately discovered to be involved with Tassi through an act of looking—her father’s. Felleman adds her interpretation of the role of the perspectival grid in “sexualized dynamics of the perspectival gaze” (30). As evident in the sequence in which Tassi is giving Artemisia a lesson on visual perspective while she stands behind the perspective grid with her eyes closed, listening to his words (as opposed to actively looking), the shifts between Artemisia being the subject of the gaze to the passive object are common in this film. She is shown to be a voyeur in some ways, with a highly eroticized gaze, but also as an object, objectified by the gaze of the painter and the camera. Felleman’s explanation of the film’s fascination with the act of looking, Artemisia’s scopophilia as a mirror of “every moviegoer’s and every moviemaker’s passion” is very believable.
From what I have watched of Camille Claudel thus far, Felleman makes astute observations, taking a position that I agree with. Felleman’s argument that art is shown to be the product of Claudel and Rodin’s “mud lust” (32) is very evident in what portion of the movie we have seen. The emphasis on Claudel’s filth is present in sequences such as her late night trip to the clay pit, scenes of her sculpting in clay, in a conversation she has with Rodin in a carriage in which she explains her mother’s disliking of her profession and “all that filth,” and perhaps most clearly in the sequence of Rodin forming her portrait bust which features parallel shots of Rodin feeling her human face and his hands forming it in the clay. These sequences overwhelmingly suggest the validity of Felleman’s suggestion of Claudel’s coprophilia, her highly eroticized love of excrement, which is induces a sort of creative hysteria within her. These, along with several sequences showing Claudel as the model, sculpted and contained by the hands of the male artist Rodin, ultimately support Fellman’s comparison of cinematic origin and the “filmmaker’s interest in making” (36).