The summer 2009 issue of Film Quarterly (now in its fiftieth year!) is out, and in it renowned professor and film theorist Laura Mulvey presents a close reading of Max Ophuls’s The Earrings of Madame de . . . , looking at the film in terms of repetition—both thematic and with regard to those elements that Ophuls borrowed from his own earlier work—and, unsurprisingly, gender politics: the story’s “opposing iconographies of masculinity,” as played out in its two main male characters, and representation of the “inequalities of gendered power relations.” Needless to say, it’s worth a read, and you can download the article from Film Quarterly here.
1953
100 min
Black and White
1.33:1
Categories: Clippings
1 Comments
Tue 07 Jul at 09:23 AM
benny thomas
The Earrings of Madame de . . . is based on a 1951 novel by Louise de Vilmorin simply called Madame de, who, in pawning the earrings given her by her husband, sets off a chain of circumstances It’s like a brooch, small in scope but filigreed and chiseled masterly as the works of Ophuls often are. The film has a special sheen brought out by incisive wit, irony and understanding. His films are all a treat to watch. It is all on the surface like light caught and the many facets of the stone keeps you attentive to what goes on beneath. ”Madame de…” is one and his ”La Ronde” (1950) and ”Lola Montes” (1955) are similarly masterly. Take for instance the scene where he makes Baron writing his lover day after day, with no letter back. Of course Louisa frail in health and unable to stay in Paris tears up his letters and throw them out of her train carriage all the more despondent. She must play her part as demanded of her. In her thoughts,-her tears and unhappines on reading them were as good as replies to them. She lacked the courage to reply in any other manner. Their marriage in nutshell has style but no susbstance. As the general puts it succinctly, – it is his way of serious conversation, ‘our conjugal life is a reflection of ourselves’. The diamond earrings like RL Stevenson’s Bottle Imp turns up often to expose the thin veneer of marriage as an institution in the pre WWI France. Louisa will lie and her fib will make her lover take offence also lead to a duel between two persons who mean most to her. All this will make the viewer agree with the baron who quotes Napoleon,”The only victory in love is to flee”.
.benny
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