Word: portraits
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Holland has none of the natural genius of a filmmaker like Jane Campion, and Washington Square has little of the daring or visual audacity of Campion's own James adaptation, last year's grievously ignored Portrait of a Lady. At the same time, Holland's straightforward storytelling may give audiences more access into James than Campion's almost frightening originality...
...does Holland stand on Jane Campion's controversial rendering of James's The Portrait of a Lady? That film was spurned by audiences and many critics for reimagining the novel's entrapped ingenue into an emotional masochist looking for trouble. "I think the criticism of Jane and Portrait came because people didn't like the film," says Holland. "If the film had been more effective for them, they would not have nitpicked about the approach...
...same time, Holland acknowledges that "my situation was much easier, because Washington Square is one of the easiest of James's novels." Because "the plot is very, very simple," her source material could withstand a more conservative adaptation than could the more intricate and interior Portrait undertaken by Campion...
...example, one will end up with an answer of only 12 while standing before an extremely confident study of a male torso begun in (gasp) 1893. Fourteen, before the beautifully solemn portrait, "Girl with Bare Feet." And only 15 before the exhibition's first self-portrait, painted with expressive strokes in a restrained palette...
...least some of the letters survived to resurface here, but Lear's treatment of Carson's romantic life is never prurient, and it helps fill out the portrait of a gifted and courageous woman who helped redefine the way humans look at their place in nature...