One such person was Don Anderson who stated "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not taking it anymore". Campion was accused of only using the sections she wanted to serve her feministic purposes and also removing the literary aspect of Henry's novel and turning it into a purely visual adaptation. Her 'hallucinatory' techniques, particularly the dream scene has quite a mixed reaction from common audiences to critics. In the dream scene, whilst I believe it to be incredibly original and rather eerily effective, can be questioned being used in a movie set at a time that predates the advent of film. Many people did not seem to understand why she had chosen to send the film away from the Merchant-Ivory films and the recent Jane Austen adaptations. Some critics even chose to remove the idea that it was in fact an adaptation and that it was indeed more an interpretation. As Robert Ebert from the Chicago Sun-Times states it 'gives us Isabel from a completely different angle. It is common for modern directors such as Jane Campion to come under fire for the artistic approach to adaptation. The post-modernistic ideals of art through film are hard for classically trained critics to come to terms with. Particularly when the book dates back to 1881, and over a hundred years later it is turned on its head for the benefit of a modern audience. This is not a bad thing at all but represents completely the type of stigma attached to literary adaptation to cinema and why it is so unfairly charged with phrases like 'exploitation'. Campion was attacked from both ends though. In an attempt to appeal to the modern audiences and move away from the novel into more exciting territory, she was still accused of losing focus of all that makes the novel exciting and in fact inversely, making to more dull. Portrait of a Lady is a perfect example of film giving too much to look at, not just to the audiences, but to the critic as well.
