No film director intoxicates the soul like Max Ophuls. His elegant, fluid, and compassionate romances seduce the senses and enrapture the mind. His stories are often trifles laden with opulent camouflage, but his camera coaxes out the inner secrets hidden in the decoration’s folds. His films belong together as a body, no single film does his career justice. The Earrings of Madame de … is the next-to-last film of his career, a peripatetic career that saw the director working in Germany, France, Switzerland, and the United States. Like most of his movies, Earrings has an elegant circularity and an outdated romanticism that blends sublimely with its ironic illuminations. Also, Ophuls’ elaborate camera movements enrich the story and tickle the mind. Ophuls is the kind of artist who might be called a “filmmaker’s filmmaker.” Viva Max!
This article appears in July 7 • 2000.
