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| Max
Ophüls |
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| 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) |
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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) |
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250 Quintessential Noir Films:
Caught (1949), The Reckless Moment
(1949) |
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"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) |
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"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) |
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"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) |
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"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) |
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"I
was very influenced by the movies of Max Ophüls, who moved the
camera all the time." -
Vincente Minnelli |
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