In Popular Culture
The painting has been widely referenced and pastiched in art, film and photography.
In The Ring 2, while Rachel Keller browses the pages of the book found in the cellar of Samara Morgan's house, this painting can be seen on the book.
Laurence Olivier's film Hamlet (1948) based its portrayal of Ophelia's death on the painting.
In Ken Russell's 1967 television biopic of Rossetti, Dante's Inferno, composition is used to symbolise Elizabeth Siddal's own death.
The video of Nick Cave's song "Where the Wild Roses Grow" depicts Kylie Minogue mimicking the pose of the image.
The still of Kirsten Dunst floating down a stream in her wedding dress with her bouquet in Lars von Trier's Melancholia is also inspired by Ophelia.
The song "All I Need" from Radiohead's album In Rainbows features the line "I'm in the middle of your picture, lying in the reeds" which certainly references the painting, and in turn Ophelia's sense of helplessness.
The Oliver Stone movie Savages features a reproduction of the painting hanging on a wall of a room in which Blake Lively's character is imprisoned. In the scene, her character writes a letter to her mother saying, "You'd die if you saw the portrait of Ophelia hanging in my room".
Read more about this topic: Ophelia (painting)
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