1/14/2019
The Pool - Arts & Culture - Could Lizzie Change The Way Sexual Violence Is Portrayed On Screen?
FILM
Could Lizzie change the way sexual violence is portrayed on screen? 4
MIN
A new film sees Chloë Sevigny and Kristen Stewart tell the story of alleged axe murderer Lizzie Borden. But the real horror is the abuse of the women at the centre of the story, says Rachael Sigee By Rachael Sigee
*Contains mild spoilers* Last week, Natalie Portman, speaking at Variety’s Power of Women event, urged a room of her peers to move away from sexual-violence narratives: “Tell a new story. What if we took a year off from violence against women?” she said. “What if, for one year, everyone in this room, just one year, does everything in their power to make sure that all the entertainment produced from this room doesn’t depict the rape or murder of a woman? And the projects you write, produce, direct, act, package, market do not harm women this year? Let’s see how that goes.” It is a bold ask, when storytellers have so long relied on sexual violence as a way to make female characters more complex, to punish male https://www.the-pool.com/arts-culture/film/2018/42/Natalie-Portman-rape-scenes-film-Lizzie-Borden-Chloe-Sevigny-Kristen-Stewart
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1/14/2019
The Pool - Arts & Culture - Could Lizzie Change The Way Sexual Violence Is Portrayed On Screen?
characters and as an excuse to ask actors to strip off, but it is a conversation worth having post-#MeToo. Especially with the obvious disconnect between how much fictional sexual violence society is content to be entertained by, compared to how little credence the same crimes are given in actuality. So, at the very least, it is important to interrogate how sexual violence is portrayed and what purpose it serves. In the film Lizzie, due for a December release in the UK, Chloë Sevigny and Kristen Stewart tell a version of the brutal and infamous story of Lizzie Borden, the 19th century alleged axe murderer who spawned a ghoulish
nursery rhyme. While she was acquitted in real life, because the jury did not believe a woman of her social standing could commit such heinous crimes, this telling imagines that Sevigny’s Lizzie could and did, partly motivated by the repression of her sexuality – in this telling, she has a relationship with housemaid Bridget, played by Stewart. Tension builds to a grizzly climax, which does not flinch from skullcrushing violence and is pretty sickening to watch. But the true horror of this gothic tale is not the bloody axe murders – it’s the abuse of the women at the centre of the story. Stifled by the patriarchal society in which they live, both women are trapped in a claustrophobic house, stuck in roles that have been decided for them and forbidden from moving, thinking or speaking freely. For Bridget, this bleak and impotent existence is compounded by the grim reality of her employer, Lizzie’s father, visiting her room nightly to rape her.
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Lizzie’s take on sexual violence means making it about the victim, the woman who will have to get up in the morning and serve her abuser breakfast and wash his clothes and change his bedsheets
https://www.the-pool.com/arts-culture/film/2018/42/Natalie-Portman-rape-scenes-film-Lizzie-Borden-Chloe-Sevigny-Kristen-Stewart
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1/14/2019
The Pool - Arts & Culture - Could Lizzie Change The Way Sexual Violence Is Portrayed On Screen?
As Portman alludes, this story has been told time and time again by cinema and, for the most part, it is a pretty sorry line-up of gratuity, titillation, convenient plot devices and justifications for negative female character traits. Rarely has it been conveyed with the weight or empathy it deserves. In Lizzie, the scenes of Bridget’s assaults are not protracted but they are impactful, depicted through her reactions to footsteps on the stairs and her mouth clamped shut in fear. Instead of torn nightshirts, naked flesh and lusty panting, we see a tight shot of Stewart’s face, drained of colour and eyes wild, as her abuser sits down on her bed and lays his hand on her shoulder, before cutting to him returning to his room, where the camera focuses on his wife’s face, wide awake and twisted with hurt as her husband climbs back into bed. Side-by-side, the two shots are heartbreaking and what could have been bodice-ripping is rightfully bonechilling. From the moment Borden suggests that Bridget leave her door open at night to help the air circulate, the inevitability of her abuse is clear – the film lingers on the weight of what his words really mean. It speaks volumes that she is terrified but not surprised by what happens. In all likelihood, it has happened to her before, with other men, in other households. Lizzie’s take on sexual violence means making it about the victim, the woman who will have to get up in the morning and serve her abuser breakfast and wash his clothes and change his bedsheets. Bridget is so lowly that he doesn’t even bother to learn her real name, generically calling her “Maggie”, instead. She is affected by her experience as she anticipates what is coming, the morning after it happens and every day after that. The Borden house is built on suppressed trauma as much as it is New England money. There have been mixed reviews of the film, and it is not perfect; Chloe Sevigny herself has spoken about not being entirely satisfied by the final product. But the way it frames Bridget’s sexual abuse, both literally on the screen and narratively in the story, Lizzie takes it seriously and contextualises it beyond plot. When the tension cracks, Bridget’s rape is just one of many fault lines quivering to breaking point, rather than the sole reason for murderous release. https://www.the-pool.com/arts-culture/film/2018/42/Natalie-Portman-rape-scenes-film-Lizzie-Borden-Chloe-Sevigny-Kristen-Stewart
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1/14/2019
The Pool - Arts & Culture - Could Lizzie Change The Way Sexual Violence Is Portrayed On Screen?
There are other scenes in Lizzie, notably the actual murder scenes, which will have people talking on release and, perhaps, the rape scenes will slip under the radar. But they shouldn’t, because, while Portman is right that there are stories beyond the sexual violence of women that are worthy of telling, a reframing of that violence does feel different and does feel new.
@littlewondering
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https://www.the-pool.com/arts-culture/film/2018/42/Natalie-Portman-rape-scenes-film-Lizzie-Borden-Chloe-Sevigny-Kristen-Stewart
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