A Max Ophuls Festival

My first introduction to Max Ophuls came through Bijou, of course.

In those days, we were regulars at the Encore Theater in Hollywood, the Fine Arts in West L.A., and other so-called Art Houses where you could watch classic American and foreign films, gathered together in "festivals".

I was able to watch the American movies on the big screen that I had seen sliced to bits on television for years. There were the MGM and Astaire-Rogers musicals, Bogart movies, Hitchcock films. Each new Bergman and Fellini movie were anticipated as eagerly as the latest Beatles album, as of course were the latest Godard and Truffault.

Bijou’s favorites were the French classics, "La Belle et Le Bete" - Cocteau’s surreal fairy tale that was part horror story and part baroque romance, and "Les Enfant du Paradis" (the 190 minute French version), - made in occupied France under the noses of the Germans by Marcel Carné, written by the legendary Jacques Prévert, starring the equally legendary Jean-Louis Barrault and Arletty.

I found both these films to be hopelessly over-the-top romances, the first a fantasy and the second a tragedy, the kind of stories teenage girls weep over. We argued endlessly about them and Bijou concluded that I was hopeless. No way I could grasp the beauty of Cocteau’s imagery or Prévert’s poetry, forced as I was to rely on the inadequate and prosaic subtitles. Nor could I hope to appreciate the cultural icons that Barrault or Jean Marais (the beast), for instance, represented to the French.

Bijou was right about the barrier of subtitles. Her frequently whispered asides to me during these films made it clear that I was missing important stuff. But I found that the inadequacy of the subtitles forced me to concentrate on the subtleties of camera work, sort of the way I had to focus intently to dig silent movies, like Vidor’s "The Crowd".

Despite the nuisance of subtitles, I was better able to enjoy Jean Renoir’s masterworks, "The Grand Illusion", which was about war, and "The Rules of the Game", which was about a society in elegant decay, blithely unaware of its impending doom. Bijou found these films "too political" and "talky."

But when it came to the films of Max Ophuls we were in complete agreement. Ophuls, a German Jew who fell in love with France when he emigrated there in 1933, was acceptably "French" in outlook and style, admiring of the Belle Epoque, an era of decadence and prudery, ostentatious wealth and rigid class pomposity, in which he found the ironic stories he wanted to tell.

His masterpiece is considered by critics to be "Lola Montes", but the ones I best remember are "La Ronde", "Le Plaisir" and "The Earrings of Madame de ...".

I recently watched them again on restored DVD’s. The trilogy showcases Ophuls brilliant style. You can see why Ophuls dazzles and influences modern filmmakers - his camera style and story telling ability are singular.
There are few special effects in Ophuls films, but modern filmakers are amazed by his ability to stage and film long scenes in one take while the camera and characters weave through complex sets in a natural, yet stylized manner. He captures your attention, forces you to absorb the details of the action, carries you along into the story.
His style is apparent, but never as intrusive or showy as Welles or Hitchcock can be. Where their camera styles always remind you that you are watching a movie, Ophuls' camera, while no less cinematic, never forgets to be the eye of the audience.

"La Ronde"
A French all-star cast: Anton Walbrook, Fernand Gravet, Simone Simon, Danielle Darrieux, Gerard Phillipe, Jean-Louis Barrault, and many others.
A survey of all variations of the genre, touching on all its passion, humor, and drama. Cinematically inventive as all of Ophuls, full of winking sophistication about the illusions we need about love. A gem that even modern audiences should enjoy.
The form of the round, in which A loves B, B loves C, C loves D, and D loves A, has been used by such as Ingmar Bergman ("Smiles of a Summer Night") and Woody Allen ("A Midsummer’s Night Sex Comedy"). This is the best.
Of course, you have to tolerate the subtitles, black & white, & the stagelike fantasy of it. But it is The classic romantic comedy for all time.

"The Earrings of Madame de ..."
Danielle Darrieux, Vittorio De Sica, Charles Boyer.
Ophuls is one of the least known of the great classic film stylists who made full use of the "moving picture camera." Like Welles, Fellini & Hitchcock, the moving camera sets the mood, tells the story, moves the viewer's emotions, more eloquently than the words.
It is also a "round" of a sort, a plot full of ironies and coincidences. The story here, like the camera movement, is complex, ironic, witty, and ultimately profound on its many levels.

"Le Plaisir"
Three de Maupassant stories. The first, "Le Masque", a vignette about a strange man in a mask who faints while dancing and is treated by a doctor (Claude Dauphin) who unmasks an ironic mystery. The second, "La Maison de Tellier" is a longer story about ladies from a popular brothel who travel to the country for a young girl’s confirmation, where they recover their innocence (with Jean Gabin and Danielle Darrieux). The third, "La Modele" (Simone Simon), in which an artist falls in love with a model, but refuses to marry her with tragic result.

These films, made and released in the early 1950's, remain as entertaining and as fresh as when I first saw them.