Analysis on the Scenes of Water Lilies and Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Abstract

Céline Scimma, the French independent filmmaker, is a highly acclaimed and renowned director. The sexual fluidity of females is a typical motif of her films. However, when most of the discussions about Sciamma’s movies focus on the theme, her felicitous application of settings is simply neglected. Setting is prominent for the integrity of a film’s expression but the significance of setting is always underrated by audience. By investigating Sciamma’s the two lesbian films Water Lilies and Portrait of a Lady on Fire, from the four dimensions of setting which is proposed by Robert McKee, the analysis demonstrates how the setting functions in a film to achieve the story and convey director ’s notion. It shows that the utilization of setting helps to improve the dramatic tension and to construct a fuller character image through setting up their relationship with the space of story.