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Max Ophüls

 

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 Pantheon Director 
 
Irene Bignardi's 5 Best Directors
 
501 Movie Directors: A Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest Filmmakers
 
See Also
Marcel Carné
Rene Clair
George Cukor
William Dieterle
Julien Duvivier
Fritz Lang
Anatole Litvak
Vincente Minnelli
Robert Siodmak
Luchino Visconti
View video clips relating to this director at YouTube.com
Director / Screenwriter / Producer
1902 - 1957 
Born May 6, Saarbrücken, Germany
Key Production Countries: France, USA 
Key Genres: Drama, Melodrama, Romantic Drama, Period Drama, Psychological Drama, Romance
Key Collaborators: Christian Matras (Cinematographer), Jean d'Eaubonne (Production Designer), Jacques Natanson (Screenwriter), Curt Alexander (Screenwriter), Danielle Darrieux (Leading Character Player), Anton Walbrook (Leading Player), James Mason (Leading Player), Ralph Baum (Producer), Annette Wademant (Screenwriter), Leonide Azar (Editor)
Highly Recommended: Liebelei (1932), La Signora di Tutti (1934), Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), Caught (1949), The Reckless Moment (1949), Madame de... (1953)
Recommended: La Ronde (1950), Lola Montès (1955)
Links: [ IMDB ] [ All-Movie Guide ] [ Film Reference ] [ Classic Film and Television Home Page ] [ Boston Phoenix Article (2000) ] [ Derek Malcolm's Century of Films ] [ Locarno Film Festival Biography ] [ Senses of Cinema Article (2002) ] [ Inside Out Film Article ] [ Baseline Biography ] [ Undercurrent Article (2006) ]
Books: [ Max Ophüls and the Cinema of Desire ] [ The Cinema of Max Ophüls ] [ Max Ophüls in the Hollywood Studios ] [ Souvenirs ]
DVD's: [ Amazon ]
1,000 Greatest Films: Liebelei (1932), Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), The Reckless Moment (1949), La Ronde (1950), Le Plaisir (1951), Madame de... (1953), Lola Montès (1955)
250 Quintessential Noir Films: Caught (1949), The Reckless Moment (1949)
 
Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948)Liebelei (1932)The Reckless Moment (1949)Earrings of Madame de... (1953)
 
     
  "The identification with a female consciousness and the female predicament is the supreme characteristic of the Ophülsian thematic; at the same time, the Ophüls style - the commitment to grace, beauty, sensitivity - amounts to a celebration of what our culture defines as "femininity," combined with the force of authority, the drive, the organizational (directorial) abilities construed as masculine. In short, the supreme achievement of Ophüls' work is its concrete and convincing embodiment of the collapsibility of our culture's barriers of sexual difference." - Robin Wood (The St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia, 1998)  
     
  "Repeatedly, Ophüls explored the gulf between idealised love and the reality of passion: in Liebelei, Letter from an Unknown Woman, Caught and Madame De... disappointment and despair darken the mood, yet the films finally reaffirm love's undying appeal - reflecting, ironically, on the romantic illusions proffered by cinema itself." - Geoff Andrew (The Director's Vision, 1999)  
     
  "Max Ophüls is one of the greatest of film directors. He is frivolous only if it is frivolous to be obsessed by the gap between the ideal and the reality of love...No one had more sympathy for love than Ophüls, but no one knew so well how lovers remained unknown, strangers." - David Thomson (The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, 2002)  
     
  "A romantic with an eye for psychology, period detail, and sweeping camera movement who lensed melodramas about love and its joys and consequences." - William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978)  
     
  "I was very influenced by the movies of Max Ophüls, who moved the camera all the time." - Vincente Minnelli  
     
 
 
 

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