Max Ophüls

[HerrSchreck]

Max Ophüls (1902-1957)



"This Hollywood crisis could be good for you...
this desperate cry for cheap production would
make it possible for you to fool them, and before
they realize it make good pictures. In the picture
I just finished, I found out that that is possible."


Filmography

Les amants de Montparnasse / Hero of Montmatre (1958) (uncredited) DVDPascher copy, probably obscure.

Lola Montes (1955) (as Max Ophuls) R1 Fox Lorber

Madame de... / The Earrings of Madame de...(1953) R2 Second Sight, R1 Criterion

Le plaisir (1952) R2 Second Sight, R1 Criterion

Vendetta (1950) (1946 first version; fired) (uncredited)

La ronde / Roundabout (1950) R2 Second Sight, R1 Criterion dvd

The Reckless Moment (1949) (as Max Opuls) R2 Second Sight

Caught (1949) (as Max Opuls) R2 Universal DVD

Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948) (as Max Opuls) R2 Wild Side

The Exile (1947) R1 "Firecake Ent" dvd, released and discontinued in one month(???)

De Mayerling a  Sarajevo / From Mayerling to Sarajevo (1940) R2 Warner VHS

L'ecole des femmes (1940)

Sans lendemain / Without Tomorrow (1939) Discont(?) R2 Warner VHS

Werther / Le roman de Werther(1938) Discont(?) R2 Warner VHS

Yoshiwara (1937) R2 Discont(?) Warner VHS

Komedie om geld / The Trouble with Money(1936)

Ave Maria (1936/II)

La tendre ennemie / The Tender Enemy (1936) R2 Warner VHS

Valse brillante de Chopin (1936)

Divine (1935) R2 Warner VHS

La signora di tutti / Everybody's Woman (1934) R2 RHV DVD, R1 Connoisseur VHS

Une histoire d'amour / Love Story (1933)

Lachende Erben / Laughing Heirs(1933)

Liebelei / Flirtation (1933) R1 Kino VHS, R2 "Art House" VHS

On a volé un homme / Man Stolen (1933)

Die verkaufte Braut / The Bartered Bride(1932) R1 Triad "enhanced" dvd, Internet Archive Online View or download (Note: notes claim film has been re-uploaded and is now complete)

Die verliebte Firma / The Company's in Love (1932)

Dann schon lieber Lebertran / I'd Rather Have Cod Liver Oil (1931)


In Print

The Cinema of Max Ophuls (Paperback)by Professor Susan M. White (Author)

Max Ophuls in the Hollywood Studios by Lutz Bacher: Hardcover, Kindle Edition

Max Ophuls (Paperback) by Claude Beylie

Max Ophuls: Eine Biographie mit zahlreichen Dokumenten, Texten und Bildern (Arte Edition) (German Edition) (Perfect Paperback) by Helmut G Asper

Max Ophuls (Cahiers du cinema) (French Edition)by William Karl Guerin

Max Ophuls, l'enchanteur (Universale/cinema) (Italian Edition) by Aldo Tassone

Max Ophuls and Melodrama
_________________________________________________________________

[GringoTex]

Since the Criterion set came out, I've watched its films plus Reckless Moment and Letter From an Unknown Woman multiple times now, and I'm staggered by Ophuls 5-year achievement. The only comparable 5-year run I can think of are Bunuel's early 50s, Boetticher's late 50s, and Godard's early 60s.

At this point in time, Le Plaisir has floated to the top for me. In addition to the requisite Ophul's camera movement, the film contains several static long shots (such as the town gents sitting and staring out at the seas, the train ride, and the church scene), each consisting of multiple characters carrying out their own personal little narratives. It's a precursor to Tati's restaurant scene in Playtime and makes for infinite pleasure in reviewing.

[HerrSchreck]

Caught really is a magnificent picture, as indeed is Reckless Moment. I had the good fortune recently of getting my hands on the Pal discs of both of these films, and Ophuls' delicacy and sophistication is completely incredible. Not to mention he pulls out of James Mason in both films a sense of spontenaety and easy charisma that compliments the subtext of psychological self-immolation that runs beneath so many of his performances.

In his best pictures I often think that Ophuls' moving camera is overemphasized-- his technique is full, and his achievement is total. Despite the impressive quality of his moving camera, his sophistication is far more refined than just that-- too refined actually to be pinned down to a single shining conceit.

He often reminds me of G W Pabst's finest hour: The Love of Jeanne Ney, where Pabst achieved his best work via the expressive deployment of all the tools the cinema sticks in the director's toolbox: montage, moving camera, art direction, casting, on and on. The finest journeyman professionalism ratcheted to exquisite levels, invisible style made hugely visible by force of talent, intelligence and originality.

Although I love the avant garde, guys who fought from the outside to get their pictures made in their own way, equally fascinating are men like Ophuls and Sirk who load the "Hollywood Style" with such livid originally and depth-- I often find myself wondering: are men like Ophuls and Sirk taking the cinema backwards to the glories of the hi-art styles of Murnau, Sternberg, the scripts of Carl Mayer, the atomic exquisitries of pre War Lang at UFA, when the medium reached it's hieght of visual expression? Is this style of melodrama a nod to the very best of work of the Impressionists and the Germans? Or did they take the medium forward into the future, taking what they needed from the past and, with the inegration of these conceits into classical Hollywood melodrama, crafting something entirely new?

The answer is probably not important and maybe just a bit of mental masturbation, but it's something that nonetheless pops to mind when watching them. For me, Ophuls is even harder to pin down than Sirk, whose style is so visually muscular. Ophuls' tends to go right to the edges of this kind of visual exaggeration, and dances comfortably along that razors edge. As opposed to "stark", I'd call him lush. Looking at Caught or Reckless Moment is instructive, since these are considered 'noirs'... yet they lack the extreme visual starkness that other directors might lean on to lather up a metaphor for clashing moral elements. Ophuls seems to find his home in shades of grey, juggling all the temperatures like a maestro, never tending to much exaggeration except for punctuation here and there. This as opposed to the wrought iron hardness of say Mann, who was equally adept at melodrama as well as noir yet in a far more masculine and exaggerated way.

What I love about Mann is that you could turn the sound down and-- strictly through the compositions of his images-- get quite a bit of the vast bulk of his narratives. What I love about Ophuls is that even with the sound up you can miss much of his lushly sophisticated narratives, so refined is his technique. These are surfaces wound very carefully and with delicate correspondence, and repeated viewings continue to reveal new layers and deft touches and pieces of punctuation.

[Yojimbo]

'Caught' is the only Ophuls I've seen which I ws underwhelmed by, although given that so many people disagree with me on that and at least place it on a par with 'Reckless Moment' makes me think I should give it another look.
I doubt however, I'd rate it higher than the latter film which is one of my favourite noirs, although perhaps by the strictest, accepted definitions its not quintessential noir: perhaps more 'woman's picture' and a slicker, more polished 'Mildred Pierce' too boot, featuring career peak performances by both Bennett and Mason
(who was apparently at the pinnacle of his 'matinee idol' period at the time, or so I recall my mother telling me anyhow).

Leibelei is definitely one I'm keen on tracking down.

[domino harvey]

'Caught' is the only Ophuls I've seen which I ws underwhelmed by, although given that so many people disagree with me on that and at least place it on a par with 'Reckless Moment' makes me think I should give it another look.

Caught is the worst film ever made by a great director

[Narshty]

I'm tempted to, but wont paraphrase Robin Wood when he said something like anyone who doesn't love Marnie doesn't love cinema.

Oh, Robin. If there was ever a prime example of an idiotic statement borne from an essentially good place, then that's it.

[HerrSchreck]

'Caught' is the only Ophuls I've seen which I ws underwhelmed by, although given that so many people disagree with me on that and at least place it on a par with 'Reckless Moment' makes me think I should give it another look.

Caught is the worst film ever made by a great director

Didn't you once put up a post about the film after you watched it? I was looking for it when searching for Ophuls material on this new thread, but couldn't find it anymore. You went on a bit about it, didnt you?

[Narshty]

Then my own love of cinema must be a sham. This harbinger-of-taste nonsense from Wood or whoever is neanderthal and the point where criticism turns into snake oil peddling.

[Yojimbo]

Well. that's a bald statement, if nothing else.

I'm tempted to, but wont paraphrase Robin Wood when he said something like anyone who doesn't love Marnie doesn't love cinema.

But I wont do that.

Ophuls melodramas and Noirs and kammerspiels and musicals are all formal disguises in layer upon layer of the way human beings conduct their lives - usually as best, and sometimes as worst as they can, as profoundly as Ozu, or Shakespeare, or Goethe, but who are constantly thwarted or locked into "society", or "Moral codes" or ultimately the limitations of their own egos and their need for self definition, with or without the attentions or validations of others. And all his movies are about passion. And its sibling, madness.

Leonora is a complex and ultimately an admirable figure - in fact she's almost unique in Ophuls' canon - and Ophuls then runs Mason and Ryan through an astounding gamut of good to evil in several thousand shades of gray. Central to Ophuls is the pushes and pulls on indivduals who are all struggling for indentity. Down to trying to defeat the inevitability of history, and time, and their being forgotten. Even when, like Mizo, he pushes them into these sublime levels of self-invention and performance. All the while surrounding them with one of the most seductively opulent mise en scenes in all of cinema. In the case of Caught, with the Laurents screenplay, and the Garmes photography. And the playing of every single performer in this masterpiece.

His movies really are for grown ups.

....although, in 'Marnie's' case, having listened to its champions, and, given it another go, I'm beginning to feel like the little boy who shouted 'The Emperor has no clothes on'

I suppose you're not going to say Fod's '7 Women' is his great unappreciated 'Masterpiece', now, are you?

[GringoTex]

After a fine start, this thread go mucked up real quick.

[domino harvey]

'Caught' is the only Ophuls I've seen which I ws underwhelmed by, although given that so many people disagree with me on that and at least place it on a par with 'Reckless Moment' makes me think I should give it another look.

Caught is the worst film ever made by a great director

Didn't you once put up a post about the film after you watched it? I was looking for it when searching for Ophuls material on this new thread, but couldn't find it anymore. You went on a bit about it, didnt you?

I did and I can't find it either-- very strange. The only reason I didn't expand my thought was because I assumed I already had elsewhere. My complaints with the film are very basic and therefore unfortunately almost impossible for me to overcome. It's the most amateurish Classical Hollywood film I've ever seen, with unreined and sloppy acting, an embarrassingly spastic camera, an overly intrusive score, and huge problems with pacing, among other problems. I tried listening to the commentary track and I know it has its defenders but I cannot for the life of me understand how anyone could take up the film's cause. I've disliked films from this era before, but I cannot remember ever sitting in front of the screen with such blatant shock at just how bad a film could be. It's not like I don't love Ophuls and his other films from this period. I too am a fan of the Reckless Moment and Letter From an Unknown Woman might be his best film. I just don't know what happened here.

But hey, I do like Marnie

[Gregory]

Then my own love of cinema must be a sham. This harbinger-of-taste nonsense from Wood or whoever is neanderthal and the point where criticism turns into snake oil peddling.

Wood is far from being the only critic to make such a statement. It's a clear case of hyperbole and I don't think it shouldn't be taken with any great seriousness or indignation. I would also bet that a lot of members of this forum have said such a thing at least once, or at least have to resist the temptation.
Wood's views are often strong in comparison to most critics and scholars, whose own writings in many cases is rather lifeless at least it seems that way to me. He occasionally comes out with a silly statement (who doesn't?), but there's no need to dwell on it. His writing on Ophuls is outstanding, particularly on such films as Letter From an Unknown Woman and Reckless Moment.

I like Caught a lot but don't think it reaches the brilliance of Letter From, Madame de.., Reckless Moment, and Le Plaisir. I'd need to see it again to feel confident discussing it in any great detail.

[domino harvey]

If that's a reference to me, I've already explained why I didn't initially reply with more than the one-line confirmation that Caught didn't charm everyone.

[Yojimbo]

If that's a reference to me, I've already explained why I didn't initially reply with more than the one-line confirmation that Caught didn't charm everyone.

forget one liners, how about one word, the most that I can remember about 'Caught' was that it looked 'gloomy'.
(which is not a word one tends to associate with Ophuls)
I know its been more than 10 years since I watched it, and my memory may be fading but I can remember vivid details of some films I only saw once, and in those cases some 30+ years ago.
(so perhaps its a case that my memory banks refuse to allow any more space for my memories of it).

My favourite Ophuls is probably 'Madame De', though
(although only marginally over 'Letter' and 'Reckless Moment')

[HerrSchreck]

Enough about 7 Women furchrissakes.

Is gloomy a perjorative? Stay away from French Impressionism or some of the more hardbitten noirs from the late 40's, you may go whistling down the side of a skyscraper. Seriously, I'd recommend you give it another whirl.

Not to mention "noir" itself, of which Caught is a relative soft incarnation of-- at least in terms of atmospherics.

Hey Domino, can you give some examples of where you find some of these phenomena in the picture? I know there are moments in the film that bely the pedigree (slight fuckups in bel Geddes' line readinings once or twice that werent retaken, but I think she's absolutely wonderful in this part, an entirely unique heroine in a film of this type, drawn with many facets of authenticity). Where specifically did you find the camera spastic, and problems with the pacing?

[domino harvey]

Hey Domino, can you give some examples of where you find some of these phenomena in the picture? I know there are moments in the film that bely the pedigree (slight fuckups in bel Geddes' line readinings once or twice that werent retaken, but I think she's absolutely wonderful in this part, an entirely unique heroine in a film of this type, drawn with many facets of authenticity). Where specifically did you find the camera spastic, and problems with the pacing?

I know Ophuls' cameras are always so free, but inside the doctor's office, when he moves so swiftly from room to room, it seems like he pushed the camera faster than it was supposed to be move, and it just looked jarring.

As for pacing, the first twenty minutes or so (which is also where the music problems are found) is really flat and I assume the actors weren't given enough time to rehearse before Ophuls orchestrated his notorious long takes. I'm thinking in particular the scene in the apartment where the female protagonist is reading a magazine (I think?) and the scene just goes on forever-- that's definitely a moment where editing could have tightened up and fixed a lot of the problems if the one-shot hadn't shackled the film to the take.

But I think even a great actor like Robert Ryan is lost once his character's true bent is revealed, which unfolds in a very haphazard manner. The editing during his freakouts I recall being particularly poor as well... is there a fade-out right in the middle of his line? Sorry, it's hard to write about a film in this kind of detail once time's lapsed, but I hope this helps

[Yojimbo]

Enough about 7 Women furchrissakes.

Is gloomy a perjorative? Stay away from French Impressionism or some of the more hardbitten noirs from the late 40's, you may go whistling down the side of a skyscraper. Seriously, I'd recommend you give it another whirl.

Not to mention "noir" itself, of which Caught is a relative soft incarnation of-- at least in terms of atmospherics.

Hey Domino, can you give some examples of where you find some of these phenomena in the picture? I know there are moments in the film that bely the pedigree (slight fuckups in bel Geddes' line readinings once or twice that werent retaken, but I think she's absolutely wonderful in this part, an entirely unique heroine in a film of this type, drawn with many facets of authenticity). Where specifically did you find the camera spastic, and problems with the pacing?

gloomy isn't necessarily a perjorative: it has its place.
it fits 'Human Desire', or 'It Only Rains On Sundays'.....or indeed 'Le Jour Se Leve', to name but three, like a glove.
Its just that it doesn't fit easily with Ophuls for me.

[Yojimbo]

"Liebelei" is the pre-Hollywood Ophuls I'm most keen on seeing
("Letter from an Unknown Woman" is the earliest of his films I've seen).
"Yoshiwara" only has an average rating of 6.3 from 31 votes on IMDb: a general rule of thumb for me is anything with a rating of 7.5 or higher, for directors I'm interested in, is worth checking out.

Certainly I'd agree with you though that Ophuls pre-Hollywood work deserves a box-set or, at least, an Eclipse

[Yojimbo]

It's my aim to get others interested in such a possibility.

As a "First Wave" top tier of 30s titles:

Liebelei
La Signora di Tutti
Werther
Sans Lendemain

Second Tier
Die Verkaufte Braut
Komedie om Geld
Kohana/Yoshiwara
De Mayerling a Sarajevo

Third Tier/Subjects for further research

Lachende Erben
La Tendre Ennemie
Divine

interesting that the titles of three of the films in your top tier are in three 'foreign' languages for him!

[HerrSchreck]

Just a head's up I'll be cleaning up (and in this, i e Ophuls, case, creating) the primary content for these Filmmaker threads of mine, created in a total rush of urgency at one point or another after seeing this or that film. The fact of a filmmaker thread going to 2 pgs not so long after its making is rare enough-- the fact of it doing so without any masthead is ridiculous.

New Years reso!

[Yojimbo]

What we ended up with was a French version - both the old Braunberger cut and the new Marcel/Cinematheque Franciase restoration - which also has some dialogue spoken in German and in English; the German version prepared by Droessler, all in German which has the actors including Martine, who was not a German speaker and had to be coached, reading their own dialogue, which also involved shooting entirely separate takes, and an English dub version which was also cut even more heavily than the Braunberger. He prefigures someone like Bertolucci who had a similar concept in mind for 1900, for instance.

I wonder was this similar to Visconti's use of Burt Lancaster in 'The Leopard' and 'Conversation Piece', for example?

[Mr Sheldrake]

Ophuls at AFI Silver Springs Md, during the month of February, including Leibelei and Sarajevo.

[godardslave]

behold...

Actor James Mason, who worked with Ophüls on two films, wrote a short poem about the director's love for tracking shots and elaborate camera movements:

A shot that does not call for tracks
Is agony for poor old Max,
Who, separated from his dolly,
Is wrapped in deepest melancholy.
Once, when they took away his crane,
I thought he'd never smile again.

[HerrSchreck]

Added filmography and partial biblio w links. Still more to come...

[Ben Cheshire]

Can someone point me to a review, or perhaps just enlighten me, on whether the French http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/B ... FK5RDHNB96 Ophuls set contains English subs?

I'm looking for releases that are not pictureboxed (ie, not Criterion), and I've given up waiting for Lola to hit blu, so I was thinking of somehow buying at least his four most available works to tide me over until they go blu.