. Ame d'artiste is Dulac's biggest-budget commercial melodrama, made in the wake of the success of The Smiling Madame Beudet. According to French film historian Richard Abel, it was France's first modern studio spectacular, with an international cast and crew, set in London, and shot almost entirely in the studio with elaborate sets and complex scenes such as a masked ball. After the opening scene of domestic violence (a wife is about to stab her drunken husband) is revealed to be a play, the film continues to explore the havoc wrought by passion in the off-stage life of the famous actress, her ardent admirer who is also an unrecognized playwright, and his wife. The male characters with their possessive love are juxtaposed with the women, who are willing to sacrifice either themselves or their desire, and who, as in other Dulac films, ultimately show solidarity with each other. By the end, the conjugal status quo is reestablished, but with a hint of irony, and Helen, our heroine, vows to devote herself exclusively to her art.