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April 07, 2007
The Earrings of Madame de...
(out of four)
From the opening shot, Max Ophuls’ masterpiece is a tug-of-war between passion and propriety, opulence and restraint. We discover Madame de… (Danielle Darrieux) pawing through her possessions — fur coats and exquisite jewelry the likes of which silver-screen fantasies are made — until she finds the one item she feels safe selling, a pair of diamond earrings that were a wedding gift from her husband (a Sean Connery-strong Charles Boyer).
Throughout the picture, Ophuls’ camera is a moving, dynamic participant in this romantic charade. Introducing his title character as a thing of envy, he withholds her face until the last moment of the shot, finally catching it reflected in a vanity mirror, a captive to the trophies of her privileged lifestyle. The countess's surname will remain the movie’s secret, as befits a lady of polite French society, but she could just as easily be called Gabrielle, the subject of a radically different portrait of similar tensions by director Patrice Chéreau. Both films concern emotional violence in a loveless French marriage, and though Ophuls approach may seem formal, it’s miles removed from the detached austerity of Chéreau’s attempt.
There is profound humanism to be had in Ophuls’ little drama, and yet, the true inspiration of his screenplay (co-written with Marcel Achard and Annette Wademant) comes in the way it explores its domestic battlefield not through the characters, but rather through the earrings so casually pawned at the outset. The story traces the jewels’ unlikely journey, their significance evolving with each subsequent hand-off. A petty deceit between the married couple becomes a brazen statement as her husband buys the jewels back, only to present them to his lover instead. When she falls upon hard times herself and sells them in Constantinople, where an Italian baron (Vittorio De Sica) has the good fortune to find them.
The earrings eventually come full circle when said baron happens to fall for their original owner, and in returning them to her (oblivious to their history, he thinks she is receiving them for the first time), his gift comes to represent both her wedding and her illicit new love — and of course, will be recognized by her husband as all this and something more. These are frivolous characters, all three of them, and yet real love seems to exist between the baron and Louisa (as much of Madame de…’s name as the audience ever learns), just as her husband reveals true affection for her and genuine terror at the prospect of losing her. His pride comes first, but something deeper compels him to intercede where he has always tolerated the harmless flirtation of Louisa’s other suitors. Perhaps what is most astounding about Madame de… is the way in which Ophuls succeeds in seducing us into care so deeply about his characters while pretending to be distracted with the glittering surfaces of their world.
Screened: April 7 @ the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), closing night in Janus’ 50th anniversary traveling “greatest hits” series. The movie played to a packed house and enthusiastic applause.
Posted by Peter Debruge on