Pages tagged “la ronde”

La Ronde
Director: Max Ophüls
Writer: Louis Ducreux
Cinematographer: Christian Matras
Starring: Anton Walbrook, Simone Simon, Simone Signoret
Studio/Run time: Films Sacha Gordine, 97 mins.
82/100

Le Plaisir
Director: Max Ophüls
Writer: Jacques Natanson
Cinematographer: Christian Matras
Starring: Danielle Darrieux, Jean Gabin, Simone Simon
Studio/Run time: CCFC, 97 mins.
80/100

Earrings of Madame de…
Director: Max Ophüls
Writers: Marcel Achard, Max Ophuls, Annette Wademant
Cinematographer: Christian Matras
Starring: Charles Boyer, Danielle Darrieux, Vittorio De Sica
Studio/Run time: Franco London Films, 105 mins.
84/100

In almost any scene of any of the films made by director Max Ophüls, be it in Berlin (before the ascent of the Nazi party), Paris, Hollywood, and then back in Paris, lie the director’s primary concerns: Men and women, lust, love, theatrical artifice and the illusion of desire. Though a favorite of Stanley Kubrick and perhaps the only peer to Orson Welles with regards to innovative camera shots, Ophüls’s oeuvre somehow fell by the wayside. In introductions by Todd Haynes and P.T. Anderson to these sterling DVD editions, both gush about the director’s art.