Copyright by Laura Mareike Sager 2006 - The University of Texas at ...

the space where his mirror is probably located. When the scene jump cuts to that
mirror reflection of him, “Rembrandt” repeats Solomon’s words, “Vanity of
vanities, all is vanity.” His brief smile after speaking these words, alluding to the
Self Portrait as Zeuxis, is shown only in his mirror image. Moreover, all other
aspects of that work are excluded. The laughing expression is thus connected to
the biblical message rather than to Rembrandt’s painterly skills and ambitions.
Yet, the mise-en-scène of this interpretive ekphrasis points to a filmic
irony: “Rembrandt’s” Solomon quotation appears as if spoken by his mirror
image, so that the mirror as traditional symbol of vanity is here used as site of the
subject’s realization that all worldly pleasures are meaningless and empty.
Moreover, this realization must also extend to painting and self-portraiture, which
thus becomes not a mean of self-knowledge but an expression of vanity and self-
importance. The film, then, ends by questioning the function of self portraiture as
means of self-knowledge and self-fulfillment. As the last view is only of
“Rembrandt’s” mirror image, which functions like a frame within the camera
frame, the film underscores not the search for or analysis of the self, but the gap
between self and its representation. Moreover, the device of the frame within the
frame takes the viewer back to the very first shot of “Rembrandt” in the pose of
his 1640 self portrait and its display of pride, arrogance, and material wealth.
Thus reinterpreting both these late self-portraits in the light of the earlier one, the
film does not show a development towards self-knowledge in the self portraits,
but points to the split between self and its image. 197
197 This does not mean that Korda is here anticipating later art historical interpretations of the self
portraits as self promotion, but only that his use of the late self portraits indicates a slight
departure from the traditional and then prevailing interpretation of them.
185