What, exactly, is melodrama? That question came up as I read the Self-Styled Siren's provocative post "Get Out Your Handkerchiefs: A Brief Defense of Melodrama," which itself was inspired a bit by the recent cinema blogosphere fulminations and such on behalf of Murnau's Sunrise.
Sunrise, like a lot of the other melodramas of its period, plays it straight. It's not crude, but it is about creating a galvanic effect. The genre has its stealth uses, of course, as the exquisitely ironic work of Douglas Sirk has shown.
And then there's Max Ophuls.
1948's Letter From An Unknown Woman, Max Ophuls' second English-language picture, plays on the surface like an exemplary melodrama, "woman's picture," "weepie," what have you. On the eve of a duel, once-promising concert pianist and all-around roue Stefan Brand (Louis Jourdan, in a performance of exquisitely well-judged understatement) receives the titular letter, telling the woe-filled tale of one of the women he loved and discarded (Joan Fontaine, who has cited this as her favorite film role). What he will learn, we figure, will bring tears to us, and a shot at redemption to Stefan.
Neither of those figurings turn out to be wrong. But Ophuls, with screenwriter Howard Koch (who adapted from a Stefan Zweig novella), cinematographer Franz Planer, and his stellar cast, here also creates a dizzying house of fiction whose rooms are packed with self-delusion and self-dramatization and solipsism culminating in tragic madness. The British-issued Second Sight DVD of the film, part of its exceptional Max Ophuls Collection (all I could ask, really, is for Caught to be included in the series) presents a very solid video version of the film as well as a technically crude but otherwise incredibly sophisticated and acute video essay by film scholar Tag Gallagher, who outlines Letter's variegated themes and draws parallels to other Ophuls films. Right now, as stuff from the U.K. goes, Letter's available at a bargain price. Not much looks to be happening on the Ophuls front on domestic video, so this may well be the only game in town for a while. I'll have more Ophuls news from Cannes, where a restored version of his final film, Lola Montes, is going to open the Classics section of the fest.
Ah, you remind me that I need to write up this movie, as I promised a long time ago, because it would be high on my list of top 10 films. And I suspect my reading of it might be somewhat different, as I always saw Lise as defiantly in charge of her own fate.
But a four-hanky film, for sure. The moment when Louis Jourdan asks his manservant, "you remember her?" and with a nod, the man writes her name ...
Posted by: Campaspe | April 28, 2008 at 09:46 AM
The National Galley of Art in Washington DC just recently had a mini-festival of Ophuls in America. In just 8 days I went from seeing none of his films to devouring The Exile, The Reckless Moment, the aforementioned Letter, and finally Caught.
I'm a convert, to say the least. My Region 0 DVD of Madame de.... just arrived a couple days ago.
Posted by: lazarus | April 28, 2008 at 11:00 AM
Ophuls is one of the most fascinating figures -- his films are so technically dazzling that one can overlook their richness of theme, or get so caught up in that one misses his technical virtuosity.
And the richness of Letter lies somewhere in the ambiguity -- is its heroine a victim or a martyr or what? she constantly makes bold and wilfull choices, but presents herself as having no control over her actions. Character is destiny. She wants nothing less than a perfect love, will sacrifice everything to get it, will walk away from it and accept nothing if it can't be true love... no wonder some of my students find her "scary"!
Posted by: D Cairns | April 28, 2008 at 12:01 PM
I saw some kind of restored version of _Lola Montez_ at the PFA last summer and while I overall really dug the picture something tells me that it might play better if kept lean. The version we saw was 15 minutes longer than the German 110 minute version, which Ophuls deems the "director's cut," and I don't know if those extra minutes in Bavaria really helped. I just wanted more circus delirium.
I also saw _Letter_ and it's about as perfect a little film as can be in the way a lot of classics are: you forget how great it is until you stop to think about it down the line. That guy sure was a talent. I wish I'd seem more of the series. Especially _The Reckless Moment_ and _Madame de..._. Too bad the summer sun is irresistible some days. (Or is it all too good?)
Posted by: Ryland Walker Knight | April 28, 2008 at 04:29 PM
These UK editions are really fantastic, yeah. There was to be a Criterion boxset -- containing who knows what -- released last winter, then this spring, now... who knows? And La Signora di Tutti just came out (with English subs) in Italy. Still -- one wishes there were a bit more going on. Ophuls is a director who seems to have fallen from the pantheon because he's poorly represented on DVD. A terrible reason, that.
Posted by: PM | April 28, 2008 at 11:38 PM
I'm constantly being reminded of all the brilliant films and filmmakers that are still waiting for a proper North American DVD release.
From what I've seen, I love Ophuls and hope to soon have access to more of his work. I'm not entirely fond of Letter from an Unknown Woman, but I reckonize it's my particular bias against Joan Fontaine. Something about her annoys me, I can't buy into her frailness, and her shyness feels far too affected. I'm not a fan of Rebecca for the same reason. It's still a visually stunning film, and frankly I can't really fault any other aspect of it' filmmaking. It's still better than Caught, which again features a rather annoying lead female. Still Robert Ryan and James Mason make it worth watching.
My three favourite Ophuls would be Madame de..., The Reckless Moment and La Ronde. I had the pleasure of seeing Madame de... on a big screen earlier this year at La Cinematheque Quebecoise, one of my favourite film experiences. What I love about Madame de.. and in particular, La Ronde is the sly sense of humour with the tragic romantic bend, while The Reckless Moment I admire and enjoy for being one of the best stories about a mother I've ever seen.
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