Women's portraits figure prominently in many film noirs, for example the Fritz
Lang films _Woman in the Window_ and _Scarlet Street_, also Otto Preminger's
_Laura_.
Portraiture as existential proof, self-reflection, or doubling turns up in
Krzysztof Kieslowski's _The Double Life of Veronique_ and, arguably, Alejandro
Amenbar's _The Others_.
I haven't seen _Vanilla Skies_, but Amenbar's _Open Your Eyes_ (the original)
plays with concepts of virtual reality and physical identity, incorporating the
mask worn by its protagonist as both a kind of portrait and screen. The
cosmetic mask is a site of indeterminancy, not only a reference to the
alteration of the protagonist's physical identity but also its literal
rearticulation around the points of access from which the character primarily
gathers information about and identifies with the world, his eyes. For similar
ruminations on portraits and masks, I would recommend Rilke's _Aufzeichnungen
des Malte Laurids Brigge_.
/Diane
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