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Max Ophuls - Madame de... (The Earrings of Madame de...) - 1953

Posted By: newland

Date: 20 Dec 2008 23:23:00

French master Max Ophuls’s most cherished work, "The Earrings of Madame de…" is an emotionally profound, cinematographically adventurous tale of false opulence and tragic romance. When the aristocratic woman known only as Madame de (the extraordinary Danielle Darrieux) sells her earrings, unbeknownst to her husband (Charles Boyer), in order to pay personal debts, she sets off a chain reaction, the financial and carnal consequences of which can only end in despair. Ophuls adapts Louise de Vilmorin’s incisive fin de siècle novel with virtuosic camera work so elegant and precise it’s been called the equal to that of Orson Welles.
Criterion Collection

The best film from the three Max Ophuls classics Criterion is "Madame de…" (1953), one of the greatest films ever made, and one of the most written about.

Dave Kehr, New York Times

"Madame de…" is truly one of the best French films ever made, and the fact that it has finally arrived on DVD from Criterion is reason to celebrate. – Mike Restaino, DVDFile

''Madame de…'', directed in 1953 by Max Ophuls, is one of the most mannered and contrived love movies ever filmed. It glitters and dazzles, and beneath the artifice it creates a heart, and breaks it. The film is famous for its elaborate camera movements, its graceful style, its sets, its costumes and of course its jewelry. It stars Danielle Darrieux, Charles Boyer and Vittorio De Sica, who effortlessly embody elegance. It could have been a mannered trifle. We sit in admiration of Ophuls' visual display, so fluid and intricate. Then to our surprise we find ourselves caring. – Roger Ebert

There would probably be a film by Max Ophuls in my best 10 movies of all time, let alone my best 100. It is not La Ronde, his most successful film, nor Lola Montes, the magnificent last work of a career that spanned 25 years and took in Germany, Italy and France as well as Hollywood. My favourite is the film preceding La Ronde, 1953's "Madame de…". The film is one of four he made towards the end of his life in France, which also included the less satisfactory but still impressive melodramas Caught and The Reckless Moment. It encapsulates both his dazzling technique and the way it serves what looks like slight material. The story, taken from a novella by Louise de Vilmorin but translated by Ophuls into something more like Pirandello or Anna Karenina, revolves around a pair of earrings. They are given to Madame De (Danielle Darrieux) by her husband (Charles Boyer). But she sells them to pay her debts, only for her husband to buy them back and give them to his mistress. – Derek Malcolm, guardian.co.uk

You could say, of course, that "Madame de…" is a woman's picture, like the equally fine Letter From An Unknown Woman. Many of Ophuls's movies were centred on women, but that doesn't mean they were sentimental, or had a penchant for mythologising womanhood. They did, however, show the difficulties women have in a male-dominated society. What once prevented critics treating Ophuls seriously was the splendour of his film-making. Somehow that meant he was not wholly to be trusted, as if irony and a lightness of touch simply meant stylish flippancy. Now, however, we see him as he is - a film-maker whose admirers included such diverse artists as Truffaut, Genet, Rossellini and Preston Sturges. – Derek Malcolm, guardian.co.uk

Max Ophuls' masterpiece stars Danielle Darrieux as the titular Madame Louise de…, who in the film's opening scenes is forced to discreetly sell a pair of earrings, a gift from her military officer husband Andre (Charles Boyer), in order to make good on her debts. After she claims the earrings to be lost, the story of their possible theft hits the newspapers, prompting the jeweler who bought them (Jean Debucourt) to secretly sell them back to Andre, who then gives him to his mistress Lola (Lia Di Leo) as she prepares to leave for a holiday in Constantinople. There, the earrings again change hands as Lola pawns them to cover her gambling losses. They are then purchased by Donati, an Italian diplomat (Vittorio de Sica) on his way to France to meet with Andre. Of course, the earrings soon find their way back to Louise. – Jason Ankeny, AMG

IMDB review – DVD description (Criterion).

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