Peril and protection in British courtship novels: a study in continuity and change

Abstract

and their ancestral history’ (p. 64), and then proceeding to present an argumentative logic that strongly implies that there is only one appropriate way for a white person (or perhaps, for anyone) to make contemporary films about Black subjects, and that is to present positive images and narratives of achievement, agency and fulfilment. I am of course simplifying the way Wilson presents her argument (and emphasizing one facet of an argument that is in many respects illuminating and nuanced), but I do not believe I am misrepresenting its fundamental stance. Céline Sciamma: portraits is an insightful and wide-ranging contribution to our understanding of one of the most critically-celebrated French filmmakers of the past decade. As Sciamma’s career continues, and attention to her work among cinephiles, film academics and other scholars continues alongside it, Wilson’s incisive early volume is likely to remain an indispensable point of reference, which mobilizes a novel but pertinent assembly of aesthetic, critical and political frames of reference, and in so doing offers a series of evocative portraits of Sciamma’s first four films.