The Portrait of a Lady

Director: Jane Campion

1996 / 144min / 35mm

“Campion’s adaptation of a favorite Henry James novel captures in sumptuous visual terms late 19th-century expatriate gender norms that constricted dynamic characters like Isabel Archer. While not as well received as Campion’s earlier studies of fierce rule-breaking figures, Portrait succeeds at rendering the inner lives and social agency of women with a sensitivity that continues to resonate.”—Sylvia Yount, Lawrence A. Fleischman Curator in Charge of the American Wing, The Metropolitan Museum of Art