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The film describes how her mother hired another to raise her until her father came and got her at the age of six. When Elisabeth returned home to her family, her father (Louis Vigée) loved and adored her. Louis allowed Elisabeth in his studio and let her use his supplies to draw. He was the first to realize that she would become a great artist. In her later years after Elisabeth’s father died, she had to support her family by painting portraits for the wealthy. She became a well-known artist at the age of 23, and later she became married and had a daughter. Throughout the film, filmmakers displayed her works of art by putting them in the time of her life that she painted them in. It worked well how they linked events in her life to the portraits she painted at the time. The filmmakers gave some knowledge behind the paintings but did not give their exact name or the date when they were painted. With no knowledge beforehand of Le Brun’s artworks, I had to look for the exact names of the portraits myself. Another thing I would change in this documentary is the voice of the male narrator. The narrator’s voice sounded dull and over time could put one to sleep. The way the narrator described the artist and her history sounded grating to the ears and he did not show any enthusiasm for her history. The documentary also talked about several famous historical figures who Elisabeth painted, such as Queen Marie Antoinette.
I had hoped in the film that they would talk more about Elisabeth’s relationships. I wished that they would have explained why she had such a strained relationship with her daughter. The documentary also hinted that she had several affairs while she was married to her husband. I had hoped that they would go into more details of her affairs, but they don’t mention them at all. This information is important because it was a big part of her life and affected how she treated others around her. After the French Revolution, Elisabeth and her daughter fled France because she was close to and supported the current monarchy. Elisabeth was exiled from France for thirteen years. The documentary explained where she traveled and how long she lived those places. I would have liked more details of portraits she painted because she painted many portraits of important figures in this time period. When she returned to France, she was sad that her life before she fled would never be the same again.
The costumes in the movie (e.g., short film reenactments) were really great until I took a closer look at a scene of Elisabeth and the Queen in her Salon. In the background you can see two women listening to them playing. One of the women is wearing a corset which means some women’s costumes was extremely inaccurate. Women at the time wore a corset under a dress because it was considered to be part of their underwear. Then another inaccuracy popped up, several other costumes are loosely fitted and the style in that time period was to have tight dresses. Elisabeth was well known at the time for her fashion sense, she wore white cotton shirts and dresses with few embellishments. She believed that she started several fashion trends were ever she went, according to her memoir. The movie probably should not have included this because it hardly affects what she painted.
It seems in the documentary that the filmmakers wanted to picture Elisabeth as a good wife, doting mother, and well renown portraitist. The filmmakers didn’t want to put Elisabeth in an unsavory light. I liked how they explained her relationship with the Queen. You can tell that she admired her and didn’t agree with her critics. She wrote in her memoir how the Queen ignored protocol and helped her pick up her paint brushes off of the floor when she was pregnant with her second child. In her
