- Max Ophüls
-
Max Ophüls 
Born Maximillian Oppenheimer
May 6, 1902
Saarbrücken, German EmpireDied March 25, 1957 (aged 54)
Hamburg, GermanyOccupation Director, Writer Years active 1931 - 1957 Spouse Hildegard Wall (1926-?) Children Marcel Ophüls Maximillian Oppenheimer (6 May 1902, Saarbrücken, Germany - 26 March 1957, Hamburg, Germany[1]) — known as Max Ophüls — was an influential German-born film director who worked in Germany (1931–33), France (1933–40), the United States (1947–50), and France again (1950–57). He made nearly 30 films altogether, those from the last period being especially noted: La Ronde (1950), Le Plaisir (1952), The Earrings of Madame de... (1953) and Lola Montès (1955).
Contents
Biography
Youth and early career
Max Ophüls is the son of Leopold Oppenheimer, a Jewish textile manufacturer from Saarbrücken and owner of several textile shops in Germany, and his wife Helen. He took the pseudonym Ophüls during the early part of his theatrical career so that, should he fail, it wouldn't embarrass his garment-manufacturer father.[2]
Initially envisioning an acting career, he started as a stage actor in 1919 and played at the Aachen Theatre from 1921 to 1923. He then worked as a theater director, becoming the first director at the city theater of Dortmund. Ophüls moved into theatre production in 1924. He became creative director of the Burgtheater in Vienna in 1926. 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 an older man.
It is at the Burgtheater of Vienna that Ophüls met Hilde Wall, an actress he married in 1926.
Exile and post-war career
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. He eventually received help from 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.[1] 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, while shooting interiors on The Lovers of Montparnasse, Ophüls was buried in Le Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. This final film was completed by his friend Jacques Becker.
Max Ophüls's son Marcel Ophüls became a distinguished documentary-film maker.
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.
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 during 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[3] 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
- ^ a b Bock, Hans-Michael (2009). The concise Cinegraph: encyclopaedia of German cinema. Berghahn Books. pp. 574. ISBN 9781571816559. http://books.google.dk/books?id=Bk_rjKNsYYsC&pg=PA349&dq=max+oph%C3%BCls+1957+march&as_brr=3&cd=4#v=onepage&q&f=false.
- ^ Hollinger, Karen (1986). Letter from an unknown woman. Rutgers University Press. pp. 271. ISBN 9780813511603.
- ^ "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
- Melinda Camber Porter (1993), "Through Parisian Eyes: Reflections on Contemporary French Arts and Culture", Da Capo Press. | ISBN 9780306805400
External links
- Dossier about Max Ophüls (edited by Toni D'Angela), on La furia umana, n° 9, 2011, texts (english, french, italian) by Raymond Bellour, Chris Fujiwara, Leland Monk, Gaylyn Studlar, Susan M. White, Alain Masson, and others. [1]
- Max Ophüls at the Internet Movie Database
- Max Ophüls at AllRovi
- Max Ophuls Bibliography (via UC Berkeley Media Resources Center)
- Senses of Cinema Essay by Tag Gallagher
- Max Ophüls Award
Films directed by Max Ophüls 1930s Der Verliebte Firma · On a Volé un Homme · Lachende Erben · Une Histoire D'Amour · Liebelei · La Signora Di Tutti · Divine · La Tendre Ennemie · Komedie om Geld · Yoshiwara · Werther · Sans Lendemain1940s L'école des Femmes · De Mayerling à Sarajevo · The Exile · Letter from an Unknown Woman · Caught · The Reckless Moment1950s Short films Dann Schon Lieber Lebertran · Ave Maria · Valse Brillante de ChopinOther Cinema of Germany 
Film chronology · German Empire 1895–1918 · Weimar Germany 1919–1933 · Nazi Germany 1933–1945 · East Germany (1945–1990) ·
(West) Germany 1945–present · 1945-1959 · 1960s · 1970s · 1980s · 1990s · 2000s · 2010s
Actors · Directors · Films A–Z · Cinematographers · Festivals · Producers · Composers · ScreenwritersCategories:- 1902 births
- 1957 deaths
- German Jews
- German film directors
- French film directors
- People from the Rhine Province
- People from Saarbrücken
- Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery
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