The Portrait of a Lady

Ralph Touchett is a fictional character from The Portrait of a Lady.

Release date:December 25, 1996

Directed by:Jane Campion

Rated:

Runtime:142 minutes

The Portrait of a Lady is a 1996 film adaptation of Henry James's novel The Portrait of a Lady directed by Jane Campion. The film stars Nicole Kidman, Barbara Hershey, John Malkovich, Mary-Louise Parker, Martin Donovan, Shelley Duvall, Richard E. Grant, Shelley Winters, Viggo Mortensen, Valentina... Cervi, Christian Bale, and John Gielgud. The film tells the story of Isabel Archer , an innocent young woman of independent means who is manipulated by her "friend" Madame Merle and the devious Gilbert Osmond . The film is relatively faithful to the novel but caused controversy with an interpolated dream sequence in which Isabel has an erotic fantasy involving all of her suitors. The film was released in 1996 and won several awards for costuming, screenplay, as well as acting awards for Hershey and Donovan. It was nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Supporting Actress and Best Costume Design.
more

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and... in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century. Further definition of the genre is historically difficult. The construction of the narrative, the plot, the way reality is created in the works of fiction, the fascination of the character study, and the use of language are usually discussed to show a novel's artistic merits. Most of these requirements were introduced in the 16th and 17th centuries, in order to give fiction a justification outside the field of factual history. The individualism of the presentation makes the personal memoir and the autobiography the two closest relatives among the genres of modern histories. The fictional narrative, the novel's distinct "literary" prose, specific media requirements , a characteristic subject matter that creates both intimacy and a typical epic depth can be seen as features that developed with the Western market of fiction.
more