La Ronde: The Criterion Collection (DVD)

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The following is a combined review of the three Max Ophuls´ films released by Criterion in September, 2008: "La ronde" (1950), "Le plaisir" (1952), and "The Earrings of Madame de…" (1953). The same review has been cross-posted to all three individual DVD releases. However, the Video, Audio, Extras and Film Value sections are unique to each DVD.

MAIN REVIEW

Both a canonized auteur and a successful commercial filmmaker on both sides of the Atlantic from the 30s through the 50s, Max Ophuls is a name mostly unrecognized even by somewhat savvy viewers today. Contemporary filmmakers certainly know his name: he has been cited as a major influence by hundreds of directors, most famously by Stanley Kubrick.

Kubrick seldom discussed other filmmakers but expressed his admiration for Ophuls´ mastery of the tracking shot, an obvious influence on Kubrick´s career from at least as early as "Paths of Glory" shot in 1957, the same year that Max Ophuls died. According to actor Richard Anderson, Kubrick wrapped shooting on "Paths" one day and proclaimed "This shot is in memory of Max Ophuls, who died today." Anderson says, "(Ophuls) was Stanley´s god."

Ophuls´ constantly moving camera was not unprecedented in the 40s and 50s, but no commercial filmmaker of the time so elegantly integrated the mobile camera into his work. Time and again, characters are introduced with long, graceful tracking shots that guide them from the edge of the frame into the heart of the scene. Ophuls was also fond of elaborately choreographed shots, sometimes literally choreographed as in his much-celebrated dance sequences in "The Earrings of Madame de…", "La Ronde" and many other films. In these dazzling sequences, the camera keeps up with the whirling characters without ever calling attention to the tour-de-force cinematography.

But the roving camera was hardly the only trick in Max Ophuls´ movie bag. In one scene from "Le plaisir," a traveling salesman shares a train car with several of the ladies of the Maison Tellier. Burdened with the tools of his trade, he places a large bag on the shelf above the ladies. It falls and he catches it just before it hits one of them. He tucks it back in rather carelessly. He then places a much heavier suitcase on the shelf to his left. Once again, he deftly snags it as it falls and returns it to the luggage rack where it leans precariously over the edge. In what becomes a 2 minute, 27 second static shot (there is one slight zoom in to reframe the characters) in a cramped space, Ophuls creates multiple focal points in the frame. The teetering bags are very much "alive" in this scene: we wait for them to fall at any point as the train car shakes. Add a coupe of quacking ducks in a basket held by one of the women and a long shot with almost no camera movement becomes very dynamic. It´s a remarkable feat of craftsmanship, made even more remarkable by the fact that it can so easily drift by unnoticed. Ophuls made it look easy.

In another Kubrick connection, "La ronde" is adapted from a work by Arthur Schnitzler author of "Traumnovelle" which Kubrick and Frederic Raphael adapted for "Eyes Wide Shut" (1999). Here, Ophuls and screenwriting partner Jacques Natanson adapt the saucy, scandalous, and oft-censored Schnitzler play described as "a story of love" which is to say "a story of sex." A merry-go-round features prominently in the film and serves as the guiding conceit for the entire movie. The film begins with a prostitute seducing a soldier: in the next scene, the soldier seduces a chambermaid who next proceeds to seduce (and be seduced by) her employer and so on. Every character in the film except for one has two romantic assignations in the film.

The exception is the "meneur de jeu", a master of ceremonies played by veteran actor Anton Walbrook. He serves multiple and mysterious functions in the film. Dressed in coat and top hat, he serves as narrator and operator of the merry-go-round, but he also appears in most of the scenes nominally as a character integrated into the narrative but also with an omniscient perspective, offering cleverly worded advice to people not quite clever enough to figure out what the hell he´s talking about.

The film shows no graphic sex, of course (this was 1950 after all) but it is shockingly frank about its intentions. These characters are not spending romantic days in the countryside together. They are, quite simply, trying to hook up and succeeding quite admirably in their efforts. As the merry-go-round spins on, so does the wheel of life and love and lust with room for everyone but waiting for nobody. The film is studded with an all-star cast including Walbrook, Simone Signoret, Gerard Philipe, Isa Miranda, Simone Simon, and frequent Ophuls´ actress Danielle Darrieux who appears in all three of the Ophuls films released by Criterion this month.

"Le plaisir" (1952) is a more restrained affair, but still quite bold by the standards of the time. It would have been much bolder if Ophuls had his way. The story is designed as a triptych, adapting three stories by Guy de Maupassant: "The Mask," "The Tellier House," and "The Model." Ophuls originally planned to adapt "Paul´s Mistress" a story in which the title character winds up being seduced by a group of lesbians. The producers nixed the idea, however.

"The Tellier House" is the second story and takes up the bulk of the film. The title house is a brothel that forms the nexus of all night-life in a small Normandy town. One day the male clients discover the lights in the house are mysteriously turned off and the doors shuttered. This is the equivalent of showing up at Caesar´s Palace in Las Vegas and finding it closed. A riot breaks out at the brothel while the "gentleman" off town gradually congregate (oddly, they all happen to be heading to the same place at the same time) to try to figure out how to deal with this emergency. Their polite debates devolve into heated arguments and occasional fisticuffs, once again proving one of the immutable laws of nature: horny men don´t think clearly, and shouldn´t gather in large groups.