The 1948 film Portrait of Jennie is not really about a portrait or about Jennie; it is either a) a film about the search for inspiration in a creatively dry landscape or b) a film about love transcending time, depending on whether the viewer believes Jennie is real or not. For the purposes of this blog, we’re going to assume she is, because the character of Jennie is one that is deserving of further inspection and not mere dismissal as the figment of an artistic imagination. Although the film follows Eben’s journey from blocked and unremarkable artist to a creatively stimulated “master” of his muse, creator of work that will “one day hang in a museum,” Jennie too undergoes a journey that is largely ignored by the film. Molly Haskell on page 620 of her essay “From Reverence to Rape: Female Stars of the 1940s” justifies the omission thus: “The […]
Original post by anniek