The name Elizabeth Siddal hangs almost weightless on the periphery of modern culture. If you know her, this is most likely as the model for Millais’ famous painting of Ophelia that hangs in the Tate gallery. By most accounts, Siddal was a woman who rose to fame by her association with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, an artistic circle that gained prominence in the nineteenth century. Labelled a stunner, she was plucked from obscurity and rose from milliner to model to muse. Now her story is often branded as ‘The Tragedy of the Pre-Raphaelite Supermodel’ (see Lucinda Hawksley’s 2004 biography of this name). Tragedy? Absolutely. Siddal died at the premature age of 32, from an overdose of laudanum. Supermodel? A reductive supposition based on the mythologizing narrative that arose, after her untimely death, because of the men who dominated the culture around her. From her life to death, to exhumation, mentions of Elizabeth's name conjures up images of a wraith-like figure with copper hair that miraculously continued to grow in her coffin after death, as truth has been blurred into legend.
Myths surrounding Siddal are implicit in all popular depictions of her. For example, in the 2009 TV mini-series, Desperate Romantics Amy Manson’s portrayal of her internalises the generalisations and assumptions about her life and figures her as merely a side character to the lively fraternity of the Pre-Raphaelite circle. Christina Rossetti’s poem, In an Artist’s Studio, is believed to be about Siddal. It talks of portrayals of Siddal being “Not as she is, but as she fills his dreams”. I emphasise ‘his’ here as this line perfectly sums up the male gaze which shrouds Siddal’s portrayal within her short life, upon her death, and even in the 21st century. Up until now, she has been represented as wraith-like, ailing, suicidal woman, fetishized and controllable – a personification of male desire.
But is this a fair account of this fascinating woman’s extraordinary life? And how can film help lift the veil on this Gothicised tale and give agency back to its centre figure – Elizabeth Siddal herself? It’s time for a new biopic of Siddal’s life to make her the main character in her own story. A film about Siddal could take her story to a wider audience with a new, more accurate perspective that does her justice and depicts her as she deserves to be seen: as a real woman with ambitious hopes and dreams, and creative potential she had little time to realise. She was an artist in her own right at the forefront of a prominent artistic movement – a painter, poet, and pioneer in a time when the creative capabilities of women were restricted by the harsh binaries of Victorian society.
And there would be no one better to resurrect Siddal than actor/director dream-team, Saoirse Ronan and Greta Gerwig. Ronan and Gerwig have triumphed in recent years in bringing women’s voices to the big screen. With the aesthetic quality of Gerwig’s direction and Saoirse sensational acting, combined with their passion for illuminating the experiences of women, Siddal’s story would most certainly be in safe hands.
As a step towards reclaiming women’s real stories from a male-narrated history, we need films like this on our screens. A film about Elizabeth Siddal would be a celebration of the life of a phenomenal woman: paintbrushes against a canvas, a curious and creative mind, ink on paper by candlelight, and an intellect hard to find.