Portrait of a Lady (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

The title of Henry James’s novel suggests visual interpretation, so it is no surprise that filmmakers have tried to paint The Portrait of a Lady in celluloid. Director James Cellan Jones’s lavish 1968 adaptation is a typical BBC period drama with elaborate costumes and lush Victorian sets. The four-hour film stars Suzanne Neve as Isabel Archer. Jones also adapted James’s The Golden Bowl (1972) and The Ambassadors (1977) for the BBC.

Characterized by gorgeous cinematography and near-silent sequences, Jane Campion’s 1996 film The Portrait of a Lady boldly reinterprets the novel in a painterly, dreamy style. With the collaboration of cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh, who also worked on the director’s The Piano (1993), Campion discards some of the book’s finer plot elements and produces a chilly, understated film. The cast includes John Gielgud as Mr. Touchett, Shelley Winters as Mrs. Touchett, Martin Donovan as the likable Ralph Touchett, Viggo Mortensen as Caspar Goodwood, Mary Louise Parker as Henrietta Stackpole, and Shelley Duvall as Countess Gemini. But Barbara Hershey, as the calculating Madame Merle, and Nicole Kidman, as a painfully aloof Isabel, steal the show with unforgettable performances. The atmosphere of tea parties and opulent estates—the most impressive of which is Lord Warburton’s over-the-top castle, complete with moat—is established quickly, as is Isabel’s indifference to her suitors. The scene in which Isabel rejects the proposal by Warburton, played by Richard E. Grant, ends with Isabel offering “I adore a moat,” seemingly as a form of consolation.

Although many would say that the novel is already feminist, critics have used that term for Campion’s film, probably because of its attention to Isabel’s sexuality, a dimension that is absent from the novel. Isabel’s frosty outward behavior, as articulated by Kidman, is set against her erotic fantasies with her suitors, depicted in evocative, often surreal sequences. Campion seems to say that many of Isabel’s actions derive from a deep-seated masochism—an interpretive slant that changes, perhaps even undoes, much of James’s plot. By delving into Isabel’s fantasies, Campion omits—or, at best, must imply—much of James’s narrative. For example, John Malkovich’s Gilbert Osmond is painted as positively villainous, an absolute obstacle to Isabel’s development. As a result, whereas in the novel Isabel’s attachment to Osmond is a tragic misstep, in the film it lacks plausibility. In this sense, Campion’s Portrait requires an understanding of the novel and cannot stand on its own. However, although the film lacks the intricacies of James’s psychology in the way the characters are drawn, it compensates with consistently striking visuals. Punctuated with sunshine and shadow, Campion’s The Portrait of a Lady positively sparkles like a shard of ice.