Max Ophüls
| Max Ophüls | |
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| Born | Max Oppenheimer Ophüls May 6, 1902 Saarbrücken, Saarland, Germany |
| Died | March 25, 1957 (aged 54) Hamburg, Germany |
| Occupation | Director, Writer |
| Years active | 1931 - 1955 |
| Spouse | Hildegard Wall (1926-?) |
Max Ophüls (born Maximillian Oppenheimer, 6 May 1902, Saarbrücken, Germany - 25 March 1957, Hamburg, Germany) was an influential German-born film director who worked in Germany, the United States and France. He made nearly thirty films.
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Film career
He started his career as a stage actor in 1919 but moved into theatre production in 1924. Two years later, he became creative director of the Burgtheater in Vienna and, having had 200 plays to his credit, turned to film production in 1929, when he became a dialogue director under Anatole Litvak at UFA in Berlin. He worked throughout Germany and directed his first film in 1931, the comedy short Dann schon lieber Lebertran (literally In This Case, Rather Cod-Liver Oil).
Of his early films, the most acclaimed is Liebelei (1933), which included a number of the characteristic elements for which he was to become known: luxurious sets, a feminist attitude, and a duel between a younger and older man.
Predicting the Nazi ascendancy, Ophüls, a Jew, fled to France in 1933 after the Reichstag fire and became a French citizen in 1938. After the fall of France to Germany, he travelled through Switzerland and Italy to the USA in 1941, only to become inactive in Hollywood. Fortunately, he was rescued by a longtime fan, director Preston Sturges, and went on to direct a number of distinguished films.
His first Hollywood film was the Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. vehicle, The Exile (1947). Ophuls Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), derived from a Stefan Zweig novella is the most highly regarded of the American films. Caught (1949), and The Reckless Moment (1949) followed before his return to Europe in 1950.
Back in France he directed and collaborated on the adaptation of Schnitzler's La Ronde (1950), which won the 1951 BAFTA Award for Best Film, and Lola Montès (1955) starring Martine Carol and Peter Ustinov, as well as Le Plaisir and The Earrings of Madame de... (1953), the latter with Danielle Darrieux and Charles Boyer, which capped his career. Though he died from rheumatic heart disease in Hamburg, Ophüls was buried in Le Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.
Style
All his works feature his distinctive smooth camera movements, complex crane and dolly sweeps, and tracking shots, which influenced the young Stanley Kubrick at the beginning of his filmmaking career.
Actor James Mason, who worked with Ophüls on two films, wrote a short poem about the director's love for tracking shots and elaborate camera movements:
- A shot that does not call for tracks
- Is agony for poor old Max,
- Who, separated from his dolly,
- Is wrapped in deepest melancholy.
- Once, when they took away his crane,
- I thought he'd never smile again.
Trivia
He took the pseudonym Ophüls while pursuing an early career in theatre so that, should he fail, it wouldn't embarrass his garment-manufacturer father. Later, during the American and French periods of his career, the spelling of his surname would occasionally be altered, most commonly through the removal of the umlaut; for the American films Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948) and Caught (1949), he was listed as "Max Opuls".
Max Ophüls's son Marcel Ophüls became a distinguished documentary-film maker.
"Max Ophuls" also is a character in the novel Shalimar the clown by Salman Rushdie. This ficitional character seems to have little in common with the actual Max Ophüls, despite his origin from the German-French border region.
Filmography
| Year | Title | English title | Country | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1931 | Dann schon lieber Lebertran | I'd Rather Have Cod Liver Oil | Germany | |
| 1931 | Die verliebte Firma | The Company's in Love | Germany | Short film |
| 1932 | Die verkaufte Braut | The Bartered Bride | Germany | |
| 1933 | Liebelei | Germany | ||
| 1933 | Une histoire d'amour | Love Story | France | |
| 1933 | Lachende Erben | Laughing Heirs | Germany | |
| 1933 | On a volé un homme | Man Stolen | France | |
| 1934 | La Signora Di Tutti | Everybody's Woman | Italy | |
| 1935 | Divine | France | ||
| 1936 | Komedie om geld | The Trouble With Money | Netherlands | |
| 1936 | Ave Maria | France | Documentary / Short film | |
| 1936 | La tendre ennemie | The Tender Enemy | France | |
| 1936 | Valse brillante de Chopin | France | Documentary / Short film | |
| 1937 | Yoshiwara | France | ||
| 1938 | Werther | France | ||
| 1939 | Sans lendemain | Without Tomorrow | France | |
| 1940 | L'école des femmes | France | ||
| 1940 | De Mayerling à Sarajevo | From Mayerling to Sarajevo | France | |
| 1946 | Vendetta | United States | Fired before filming | |
| 1947 | The Exile | United States | ||
| 1948 | Letter from an Unknown Woman | United States | ||
| 1949 | Caught | United States | ||
| 1949 | The Reckless Moment | United States | ||
| 1950 | La Ronde | Roundabout | France | |
| 1952 | Le Plaisir | France | Nominated for an Academy Award[1] | |
| 1953 | Madame de... | The Earrings of Madame de... | France | |
| 1955 | Lola Montès | France | Eastmancolor film | |
| 1958 | Les Amants de Montparnasse | The Lovers of Montparnasse | France | Died during filming |
References
- ↑ "NY Times: Le Plaisir". NY Times. http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/28651/Le-Plaisir/details. Retrieved 2008-12-21.
Bibliography
- Max Ophüls (1959), Spiel im Dasein. Eine Rückblende. Mit einem Nachwort von Hilde Ophüls und einer Einführung von Friedrich Luft, sowie achtzehn Abbildungen (autobiography), Stuttgart: Henry Goverts Verlag (posthumously published)
- Alan Larson Williams (1977, reprinted 1980, 1992), Max Ophüls and the Cinema of Desire: Style and Spectacle in Four Films, 1948–1955, Dissertations on Film series, New York: Arno Press (reprint). | ISBN 0405129246
- Susan M. White (1995), The Cinema of Max Ophüls: Magisterial Vision and the Figure of Woman, New York: Columbia University Press. | ISBN 0231101139
- L. Bacher (1996), Max Ophüls in the Hollywood Studios, Rutgers, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. | ISBN 0813522919
External links
- Max Ophüls at the Internet Movie Database
- Max Ophüls at Allmovie
- Max Ophuls Bibliography (via UC Berkeley Media Resources Center)
- Senses of Cinema Essay by Tag Gallagher
- Max Ophüls Award
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