A leisurely film because nothing is treated like a more important attribute of a character than anything else, this is nonetheless one of the most affected and elaborate love movies ever filmed. It sparkles and glints, and underneath the finesse it fashions a heart, and shatters it. This French-Italian romance by influential German-born Max Ophuls is known for its complex cinematography, its flowing technique, its sets, its costumes and naturally its jewelry. It stars Danielle Darrieux, Charles Boyer and Vittorio De Sica, who with no trouble manifest cultivated charm because each player is so comfortable in their own skin. It could have been a pretentious gratuity. We watch with great respect for Ophuls' aesthetic fanfare, so fluent and sophisticated. Then to our bewilderment we find ourselves emotionally invested.
The story takes place in Vienna a century or so ago. Boyer's General has married belatedly, and luckily, to Darrieux's Madame, an absolute Venus. He gives her exorbitant diamond earrings as a wedding present. As the film opens, Madame is dangerously tapped out, and searching among her accessories for something to sell. The camera follows her in an continuous shot as she looks through dresses, furs, jewelry, and ultimately rests on the earrings, which she never liked anyway. ''What will you tell your husband?'' asks her hireling. She will tell him that she lost them.
Standing back slightly from the comings and goings of the earrings, which is the material of sitcom, the movie begins to look more persistently at Madame de... She and her husband live in a time and place where love affairs are pretty much anticipated. "Your suitors get on my nerves," the General carps as they leave a party. If they do not know in particular who their spouse is flirting with, they know in broad terms. Yet there is a discipline in such situations, and it allows fooling around but not love.
Smooth, graceful tracking shots occupy every job of the camera, a stationary transience much like the journey of the material luxury and its seemingly vain covetors. The scene where they fall in love exhibits Ophuls' top form. He likes to display his characters encompassed by, even asphyxiating in, their mood. Interiors are crammed with material furnishings. Their bodies are ornamented with gowns, uniforms, jewelry, decorations. Ophuls likes to shoot past a frontal focus, or through a window, to show a characters enclosed by paraphernalia. But in the decisive romantic scene, a mosaic comprising various nights of dancing, the embracing couple is eventually left all alone after such subtle and simple time lapses.
As can be expected from bored affluent socialites, the simplest thing becomes a mystery, and leisurely dialogue becomes not about what's spoken, but what is not spoken, or said instead. Hence, "Madame de..." Though there are a few overdone lines which serve more as aphorisms than natural emotional instigations. Ultimately, the film's about the various emotions that can be truly stimulated by material possessions, not just lust for the possession itself.
At the crux of this most annoying titled movie is the idea that the worth of the earrings alters in connection with their connotation. At the start, Madame just needs to hustle them. Then, when they are a gift from her lover, they become priceless. An extravagant knickknack, meant to signify adoration, turns out to be an irritation and a hazard when it actually does. It's a great idea.
The story takes place in Vienna a century or so ago. Boyer's General has married belatedly, and luckily, to Darrieux's Madame, an absolute Venus. He gives her exorbitant diamond earrings as a wedding present. As the film opens, Madame is dangerously tapped out, and searching among her accessories for something to sell. The camera follows her in an continuous shot as she looks through dresses, furs, jewelry, and ultimately rests on the earrings, which she never liked anyway. ''What will you tell your husband?'' asks her hireling. She will tell him that she lost them.
Standing back slightly from the comings and goings of the earrings, which is the material of sitcom, the movie begins to look more persistently at Madame de... She and her husband live in a time and place where love affairs are pretty much anticipated. "Your suitors get on my nerves," the General carps as they leave a party. If they do not know in particular who their spouse is flirting with, they know in broad terms. Yet there is a discipline in such situations, and it allows fooling around but not love.
Smooth, graceful tracking shots occupy every job of the camera, a stationary transience much like the journey of the material luxury and its seemingly vain covetors. The scene where they fall in love exhibits Ophuls' top form. He likes to display his characters encompassed by, even asphyxiating in, their mood. Interiors are crammed with material furnishings. Their bodies are ornamented with gowns, uniforms, jewelry, decorations. Ophuls likes to shoot past a frontal focus, or through a window, to show a characters enclosed by paraphernalia. But in the decisive romantic scene, a mosaic comprising various nights of dancing, the embracing couple is eventually left all alone after such subtle and simple time lapses.
As can be expected from bored affluent socialites, the simplest thing becomes a mystery, and leisurely dialogue becomes not about what's spoken, but what is not spoken, or said instead. Hence, "Madame de..." Though there are a few overdone lines which serve more as aphorisms than natural emotional instigations. Ultimately, the film's about the various emotions that can be truly stimulated by material possessions, not just lust for the possession itself.
At the crux of this most annoying titled movie is the idea that the worth of the earrings alters in connection with their connotation. At the start, Madame just needs to hustle them. Then, when they are a gift from her lover, they become priceless. An extravagant knickknack, meant to signify adoration, turns out to be an irritation and a hazard when it actually does. It's a great idea.