"Two films directed by the immense Max Ophuls, born in Sarre, between France and Germany, with the deepest Viennese heart."

"Two films directed by the immense Max Ophuls, born in Sarre, between France and Germany, with the deepest Viennese heart."

"Thanks to Criterion, I could finally see the Max Ophuls movies I’d been reading about for years. The story of Madame de . . . on paper doesn’t really interest me, but in the hands of Ophuls, Danielle Darrieux, Charles Boyer, and the great Vittorio De Sica (who’s not only a fantastic director and one of the fathers of neorealism, he’s also damn suave), it’s a movie that truly amazed me. I could watch those dancing scenes for hours."

"This interview with Louise de Vilmorin on the Earrings of Madame de . . . DVD is very funny. She is already mesmerizing and charming and unlike anybody you’ve ever met—and then she starts talking about the movie. She hated it, in fact? Max Ophuls made a perfect film."

"Another example of magnificent filmmaking, wherein the performances of Charles Boyer, Danielle Darrieux, and Vittorio De Sica and the direction of Max Ophuls are so perfect that it almost stands alone in a category of romantic European filmmaking. Ophuls’s great fame rests mostly on the extraordinary directorial control he brings to this special film. It seems the most quintessential French film ever made, based on a story by the French Louise de Vilmorin, but it was directed by the German Ophuls. Americans, sensibly enough, never really tried to do this kind of film."

"My second-favorite Max Ophuls film. He loved the chain of life, where everything swirls around, just like the beautiful heart-shaped earrings of the title, as they pass from hand to hand. The opulence of the belle époque story is reflected in Madame de’s sumptuous Venetian glass dressing table mirror, and all the opulent settings throughout the film."

"My favorite Max Ophuls film. I love the swirling camera that mirrors the circus ring, and the ring of life. The story of Lola Montès (Martine Carol) and her many conquests, reenacted as a circus performance, narrated by ringmaster Peter Ustinov. It concludes with a death-defying plunge into a tub of water to symbolize her ultimate fall from grace."

"The Age of Innocence has always been one of my favorite Scorsese films—it’s one of the most painfully beautiful unrequited love stories ever. It’s Scorsese’s Max Ophuls movie, and the best Ophuls movie that Ophuls never made. 45 Years and The Age of Innocence strike me as two sides of the same coin. Most filmmakers would tell the story of 45 Years from the perspective of the husband, the man who followed convention and married the woman he didn’t love and then lost out on the grand romance. But 45 Years is like The Age of Innocence as told from the point of view of Winona Ryder’s character fifty years later. She’s the woman who never questioned convention or the institution of marriage and then realizes later that she doesn’t recognize her own life. This illusion comes crashing down on her. I think the last shot of 45 Years is one of the all-time great shots—I feel confident in saying that even though it just came out a few years ago."

"The Age of Innocence has always been one of my favorite Scorsese films—it’s one of the most painfully beautiful unrequited love stories ever. It’s Scorsese’s Max Ophuls movie, and the best Ophuls movie that Ophuls never made. 45 Years and The Age of Innocence strike me as two sides of the same coin. Most filmmakers would tell the story of 45 Years from the perspective of the husband, the man who followed convention and married the woman he didn’t love and then lost out on the grand romance. But 45 Years is like The Age of Innocence as told from the point of view of Winona Ryder’s character fifty years later. She’s the woman who never questioned convention or the institution of marriage and then realizes later that she doesn’t recognize her own life. This illusion comes crashing down on her. I think the last shot of 45 Years is one of the all-time great shots—I feel confident in saying that even though it just came out a few years ago."

"I had the legendary film critic Andrew Sarris as a professor during his later years. At the time, he’d gab about the auteur theory (it was his theory, you know?) and talk about Hitchcock, Wilder, and Ford. But when pressed by his sycophantic students (myself included), he’d actually declare a 1955 Max Ophuls movie “the greatest movie ever made.” It was the first time I had ever heard of Lola Montès, so I immediately blind-bought the Criterion laser disc. I eventually graduated to the Blu-ray, which I’ve now seen countless times. Lola Montès is a beautiful, virtuoso piece of cinema. It’s an old-fashioned woman’s picture. It’s a study of loneliness. It’s structurally daring and technically masterful. It’s also really fun. It’ll make you want to devour every Ophuls movie you can get your hands on. The Criterion disc also features a really lovely documentary on Ophuls, made by his filmmaker son Marcel (I find this extra touching as my father is a filmmaker too.) After watching Lola Montès, New Yorkers can check out the grave of the real-life Lola Montès in Green-Wood Cemetery, an unlikely burial place for this nineteenth-century globetrotter."