Artemisia (film)
| Artemisia | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Agnès Merlet |
| Produced by | Patrice Haddad |
| Written by |
Patrick Amos Agnès Merlet Christine Miller |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Krishna Levy |
| Cinematography | Benoît Delhomme |
| Edited by | Guy Lecorne Daniele Sordoni |
| Distributed by | Miramax Zoë (US) |
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Release date
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Running time
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98 minutes |
| Country | France Germany Italy |
| Language | French |
Artemisia is a 1997 French-German-Italian biographical film about Artemisia Gentileschi, the female Italian Baroque painter. The film was directed by Agnès Merlet, and stars Valentina Cervi and Michel Serrault.
Seventeen-year-old Artemisia Gentileschi (Valentina Cervi), the daughter of Orazio Gentileschi, a renowned Italian painter, exhibits her father's talent, and is encouraged by her father, who has no sons and wishes his art to survive after him. However, in the chauvinistic world of early-1600s Italy women are forbidden to paint human nudes or enter the Academy of Arts. Orazio allows his daughter to study in his studio—although he draws the line at letting her view nude males. She is direct and determined, and bribes the fisherman Fulvio with a kiss to let her observe his body and draw him.
Artemisia seeks the tutelage of Agostino Tassi (Mike Manojlovic), her father's collaborator in painting frescoes, to learn from him the art of perspective. Tassi is a man notorious for his night-time debauchery. The two hone their skills as artists, but they also fall in love, and their relationship moves into the realm of physical pleasure. Artemisia's father spots the couple making love and files a lawsuit against Tassi for rape. In the subsequent trial, Artemisia's physical state is investigated by two nuns, and then she is tortured by thumbscrews. Nevertheless, even under torture, Artemisia denies being raped, and proclaims their mutual love. Tassi himself, devastated by her plight, admits to raping her in order to stop her ordeal.
Merlet said of her film, “I didn’t want to show her as a victim but like a more modern woman who took her life into her own hands.”
The film focuses on the incident of Artemisia's rape and its immediate aftermath, and was initially advertised as "a true story" by Miramax Zoe, its American distributor. However,
In the transcript (of Gentileschi's testimony at the trial, based on records preserved in an archive in Rome), Gentileschi describes the rape in graphic detail and states that Tassi continued to have sex with her... with the understanding that he would protect her honor by eventually wedding her..... In the movie, by contrast, she's a willing partner in lust. During the trial, she says only that "I love him"; "he loves me"; "he gives me pleasure." In the movie, Gentileschi refuses to testify that she was raped, even under torture, a sacrifice that prompts a devastated Tassi to make a sham confession..... Just as problematic, says Garrard, is the way the movie ascribes Gentileschi's creative maturation to the influence of, of all people, the man whom history records as her assailant.... At the same time, many inconvenient details -- most glaringly, Tassi's relentless campaign during the trial to smear Gentileschi as a slut -- didn't make it into the movie....
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Wikipedia