Keira Knightley, Joe Wright and the Female Gaze
Pride and Prejudice, Atonement, and Anna Karenina
The female gaze is a term created in response to Laura Mulvey’s term the male gaze. It essentially describes the gaze and perspective of the female viewer and filmmaker. This concept seems to be present in the actor-director collaborations of Keira Knightley and Joe Wright. Especially in Pride and Prejudice (2005).
Pride and Prejudice is at the centre of a significant love for period pieces amongst the younger generation, particularly younger women. This has most recently been obvious in the success of Shonda Rhimes’ Netflix show, Bridgerton. It’s been so successful that TikTok user @bridgertonmusical has 31.9k followers, and @enchantedeventsuk has begun planning for a Bridgerton inspired ball — they have 70.5k followers.
On the surface, the obsession with period pieces could be attributed to aesthetic, and there is cause to believe that. Cottagecore is an aesthetic that is reminiscent of a romanticised Western agricultural life. Cottagecore is defined by its images of blue skies, open fields and women in beautiful dresses. All of these can be found in Pride and Prejudice — with this in mind, it’s no wonder that young people identify with a film that was released over 15 years ago.
The story of Pride and Prejudice itself is much older, published in 1813, it’s a classic. And this only serves to reinforce the cottagecore undertones. This is where the first viewpoint of the female gaze is relevant. ‘The individual filming’ can be considered to be the director, or even the cinematographer. In the case of an adaptation, the individual could also be the original author, aka Jane Austen. The story of Pride and Prejudice is written by a woman, and perhaps it is this perspective that women in Western societies have related to for over 200 years. The 2005 adaptation’s screenplay was written by Deborah Moggach, but it was directed by Joe Wright.
Wright’s movies are often mentioned in online discussions of the female gaze, specifically Atonement (2007) and Anna Karenina (2012), because he employs similar themes, cinematography and direction in each film. It’s interesting that women identify with these works as well, it suggests that it is Wright himself that inspires this— but surely Wright would direct with the male gaze?
In all three movies Wright never films the women with the violence or obscenity typically associated with the male gaze. Instead the camera lingers on their hands and longing stares between the women and their love interest. This is evident in so many scenes in these movies that they can’t all be mentioned here, but here are some notable examples …
… Anna and Vronsky’s beautiful dance, where their eyes never leave each other with barely restrained passion, and their hands intertwine in a dance of its own …
… that golden Atonement scene where Cecilia and Robbie gaze at each other. Cecilia in a wet and underdressed state which causes him to break the tension by looking away but the camera focusing on his vice-like grip of the vase handle exposes his controlled but deep feelings before he delicately touches the water that Cecilia had just emerged from …
… and of course, the iconic hand flex scene where Darcy helps Elizabeth into a carriage, and the simple touching of hands renders Elizabeth nearly frozen and Darcy so overwhelmed he flexes his hand to mitigate some of what he feels …
These behaviours from the characters are celebrated by women because they are recognisable and discreet. We can watch as their love blooms in secret glances and barely there touches, or longing gazes and fuller embraces which relieve the tension of waiting to fully experience touch. The love and the romance is felt in the hands and the eyes. Women are not simply looked at, they do the looking too. They look back.
Joe Wright seems to have mastered ‘what women want’ to some extent. However, there are other excellent films that can be seen as works of the female gaze — for example, Celine Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019). But there are some ways to go still in developing the female gaze, white women are at its centre. There is more to learn and more to do in regard to the portrayal of women in cinema, but an excellent place to start is by having women — particularly women of colour — telling their stories on screen and behind the camera.
Inspired by @heritagin on TikTok.
