«She won’t thank you, she’s mad»: Victorian femininity’s split in the French lieutenant’s woman (Karel Reisz, 1981)

The French Lieutenant’s Woman (Karel Reisz, 1981), an adaptation of the novel by John Fowles published in 1969, is set in a divergent space both as regards of the structure of the story as to the construction of its lead Sarah Woodruff. Throughout the text different cinematic approaches to the representation of women are interwoven, the eager male gaze and her own aspirations to self-determination all tangled up. At the same time, the present work deconstructs the melodrama, giving living proof of the infinite possibilities in unfolding the film’s discourse, deeply self-conscious.