Max Ophüls' last masterpiece in a long career of almost only such is a tragedy masked as a comedy. Lola Montès, whose story is a matter of fact, was a gay dancer acting throughout her life as she felt without lying to anyone or hiding anything, like a paragon of reckless straightforwardness, which made her the most notorious woman of the 19th century with lovers on her merit list like Franz Liszt and King Ludwig I of Bavaria, who lost his kingdom because of her. But the film is not a biopic of a courtesan. It is a phantasmagoria and artistic expertise in the creation of a fullblown masterpiece of form, colour, scenery, cinematography and above all beauty. Every single scene is full of exquisite details of beauty, this is probably the visually richest film ever made, which makes deficits in acting and tempo negligeable. Max Ophüls didn't have to prove he was the most accomplished director in film history, he just was the most accomplished purely by nature - he could be nothing else, it was natural for him, which brings us to the tragedy of the case.
The first night of Lola Montès. in Paris on December 23rd 1955 was as much of a disastrous flop as the first night of Puccini's "Madame Butterfly" 50 years earlier. It was a disaster economically, it was a scandal, people booed, they found it boring, few understood the extremely clever form of this multi-dimensional drama expressed through diving into a fallen woman's mind at the end of her tether, and the producers mauled it and cut it to pieces to desperately make money on it anyway. Max Ophüls, its creator, took this so hard that he could not stand it but died of a broken heart after a little more than a year at only 54. Not until 1968 efforts were made to restore the original version, resulting in a 90 minutes' cut down feature shown mainly in film studios, and not until 2008 the original was fully restored. So this is in many ways a most unique film, for its ingenious way of treating a very complex story of intricate psychology, depicting the long fall of an honest woman as the victim of her own outstandingness, for its marvellous cinematographic virtuosity, for its overwhelming beauty and richness, and for being one of the most ill-treated films in history, sharing in a way Lola Montès' own fate.
The first night of Lola Montès. in Paris on December 23rd 1955 was as much of a disastrous flop as the first night of Puccini's "Madame Butterfly" 50 years earlier. It was a disaster economically, it was a scandal, people booed, they found it boring, few understood the extremely clever form of this multi-dimensional drama expressed through diving into a fallen woman's mind at the end of her tether, and the producers mauled it and cut it to pieces to desperately make money on it anyway. Max Ophüls, its creator, took this so hard that he could not stand it but died of a broken heart after a little more than a year at only 54. Not until 1968 efforts were made to restore the original version, resulting in a 90 minutes' cut down feature shown mainly in film studios, and not until 2008 the original was fully restored. So this is in many ways a most unique film, for its ingenious way of treating a very complex story of intricate psychology, depicting the long fall of an honest woman as the victim of her own outstandingness, for its marvellous cinematographic virtuosity, for its overwhelming beauty and richness, and for being one of the most ill-treated films in history, sharing in a way Lola Montès' own fate.