The Role of Music and Sound in “Portrait of a Lady on Fire”
A majority of a film’s efficacy in storytelling revolves around its invisible components of sound and music. Portrait of a Lady on Fire ingeniously combines a vivid soundscape and absence of musical score to evoke feelings of realism and to communicate the thematic concepts of the story.
The only two pieces of music in the film occur diegetically, meaning they exist within the world of the story. This technique mirrors the idea that, in reality, the only sounds you hear are those that are discernable, thus evoking a sense of realism. Furthermore, Sciamma confines her selection of music and instruments/voices to those available in the time period, fully immersing the viewer in 18th-century Brittany, France.
The omission of score also heightens viewers’ awareness of the thematic role music has when it does appear. For instance, at the bonfire, the women’s song spans over the entire scene, carrying into the next, where Marianne and Héloïse help each other to the beach and kiss for the first time. This is the only point in the film where music has the non-diegetic function of a score, occurring outside of the scene. The starkness of this technique accentuates the thematic significance of this pivotal moment where the two women actualize their attraction to each other.
Sciamma exercises this same caliber of precision when using sound. The film’s soundscape is incredibly vivid, highlighting the most minute details: the crackling fire, ambient mansion, stroke of Marianne’s brush against the canvas, etc.; nevertheless, Sciamma carefully selects which sounds viewers are allowed to hear, even manipulating the sounds’ perceptibility over the course of a single scene, bringing them in and out of the audio field. For instance, re-examining the bonfire scene, Marianne, Héloïse, and Sophie arrive to the crackling fire and chatter of gathered women. As the group begins to sing, their voices take sole focus of the auditory space; we no longer hear the fire, even though we know it is still present. The removal of this supplemental sound is precisely what allows the music to become the score, and thus achieve the phenomenon described above.
