That stress can induce nosebleeds is partly cinematic myth. Going by the frequency with which they appear in film, you would imagine most of us are constantly stuffing tissues up our nostrils. A recent release in this flow is Emma, Autumn de Wilde’s sugary Austen adaptation. A pristine visual palette of pastel pink, yellow and blue accompanies an impeccably behaved Emma (Anya Taylor-Joy), so composed that when her friend is attacked by gypsies, she ballet-dances her to safety with arms elegantly poised. A biting contrast, then, that at the moment Mr Knightley asks “Will you marry me?”, her nose inopportunely spurts blood.
Emma’s spill is not the first in recent years. In 2017’s Lady Bird, the protagonist (Saoirse Ronan) has a nosebleed following her first time having sex. The same year, in Call Me By Your Name, a trickle of blood runs down Elio’s (Timothée Chalamet) nose during a vexing lunch. A short film by Luna Carmoon shown at the London film festival about a toxic female relationship takes its title from the spectacle itself. Nosebleeds are becoming an unexpected device in films seeking to complicate our streamlined romantic narratives.
This trope is well established in horror. Scanners, David Cronenberg’s 1981 film about a league of telekinetic citizens, has been credited with the first “psychic nosebleed”, a nosebleed caused by strain of telekinetic or other mental powers, or from catching a whiff of the paranormal. In Firestarter, another 80s sci-fi movie, blood runs down a telekinetic father’s face. In The Ring, a journalist’s nose gushes when she discovers, while viewing a supernatural tape, that she can pluck a fly from the screen. Here, it is ambiguous whether the nosebleed is caused by paranormal force, sheer terror, or both.
For men, the psychic nosebleed shows a human body unable to sustain a superior brain. But for women, things are more complicated. Ripley’s nosebleed in Alien exemplifies a supposedly feminine loss of bodily function under high-pressure – blood that conveys her human mortality but also seems other. These dribbles are uncanny, a symbol of death that should be contained.
Tellingly, in Chronicle, Steve (Michael B Jordan) compares his nosebleed to a “face period”, making a connection with menstruation luridly clear. Though Stranger Things’ Eleven (Milly Bobby Brown), gets telekinetic nosebleeds, critics have suggested that her nasal eruptions may represent the onset of puberty, “a harbinger of chaos”. Eleven is lucky – Arra (Claudia Kim) in The Dark Tower dies from a nosebleed, supporting the notion that this loss of bodily control is somehow effeminate.
Nosebleeds are synonymous with arousal in Japanese manga. Emma draws on the sexual aspect of nosebleeds; after several gasps, the nosebleed is the culmination of her emotional upheaval. The first in any Austen adaptation, it’s an unfulfilling climax of things not going as planned. Lady Bird’s nosebleed follows another let down, her first sexual experience not living up to expectation. As the film’s director Greta Gerwig notes, “the movie that’s playing in [Lady Bird’s] head” is “not the movie she’s in”. Both nosebleeds occur when their tenacious heroines have their supposed grip on their lives yanked away.
But their vulnerabilities are accepted, even admirable. A combination of body positivity, feminism and increasing honesty surrounding dating culture seems responsible for the nosebleed’s leak into romance. While directing Emma’s proposal scene, De Wilde reflected on the “body betraying you” at critical romantic moments. Emma’s nosebleed undercuts romantic idealism. It’s a mishap that’s as likely to happen in the 18th century as now.
As taboos around periods begin to be dismantled, a spot of female blood no longer makes us scream. Carmoon’s Nosebleed makes blood far less terrifying than what is ticking away inside her protagonist’s head. Alongside Emma and Lady Bird, it leans toward nuanced, flawed, three-dimensional women.
Gerwig has stressed that her film is not a love story, though Lady Bird may think she is in one. The director explains: “I like setting up expectations, then subverting them and delivering them somewhere else.” The nosebleed is a device that steers scenes away from perfect love, De Wilde says, to “turn it on its head”.
De Wilde claims that Emma and Mr Knightley working together to solve the nosebleed problem is “just as romantic as the proposal”. When asked about the lack of sex in Call Me By Your Name, director Luca Guadagnino cites the intimacy and tenderness in their actions. “Their love is in all things”, he says – even, perhaps, in mopping up Elio’s nostrils.
