Max Ophul’s ‘Madame De…’

‘Madame De…’ starts of pretty briskly as Countess Louise, the Madame of the title, sells a pair of diamond earrings to pay off a debt, one that she has accrued without her husband’s knowledge. That night at the opera she feints that she has suddenly lost them and a search ensues. Soon everyone knows Madame’s lobes are bare and unadorned. However, the jeweller, knowing the husband to be a powerful man (a General no less!) takes them directly to him as even the papers have noticed that Madame’s earrings have gone missing and he doesn’t want caught up in anything scandalous.
Rather than return the earrings to his wife and expose her lie the General gives them as a parting gift to his lover (everyone is sleeping with everyone else in this movie) which she takes to Constantinople and promptly loses in a game of roulette. The earrings are then purchased by the Baron Donati, the Italian Ambassador to France (and played with great sophistication by Italian director Vittorio De Sica). Donati and Louise then bump into each other in a sort of cute-meet and an immediate attraction occurs, so much so that at the many social balls everyone in this world attends their flirtatious nature is noted by everyone, even the General who seems unfazed by all this. It seems everyone can fuck whom they wish… just don’t fall in love or cause a scandal.
Of course, that is exactly what happens as through a succession of Ophul’s opulent waltzes the Baron and Louise fall passionately in love. Just at the crescendo of amour the Baron gives Louise a gift, a token of his love. Yep, those earrings have made their way back to her. But just what will the ramifications be? Too many lies have been told by too many people for any of this to be ignored or forgotten by denial and the earrings, that now stubbornly refuse to go away, demand the lies be confronted. What will happen now?!
‘Madame De…’ is like looking into the heart of a diamond: we are dazzled by the shimmering light, the incandescent gleaming and gem-like facets revealing a heart that, at times, seems cold yet burns with fire. It changes as you turn it in your hand. It is gorgeous.
There is a spectacular sequence (sequins?) where Louise tears up the letters she has written to the Baron and throws them out of her train carriage window where they dissolve and transform into flurries of snow covering the dark mountains. It was a moment that reminded me why I love movies. The film looks incredible with every frame, every shot, filled with piercing glints of scintillating luminosity. And all this light is captured and framed by a camera that glides? Floats? Dances and orbits? What Ophuls does with the camera is truly mind-boggling at times and with an unnatural precision of execution that it is easy to understand why this film was a huge influence on Stanley Kubrick.
And that is where the real joy of ‘Madame De…’ lies. The story is relatively simple yet effectively played and with many layers of psychological depth but it is that panache, that perfect melding of style and movement that really jolts. So here we see the touchstones for Kubrick’s ‘Barry Lyndon’ as opulence and composition bathed in candle-light are captured by a camera of almost unearthly grace; or figures about to duel are poised as though in a painting against a landscape of evocative power. There are a lot of similarities here and it is a joy discovering them.
Indeed ‘Madame De…’ must have had a big influence on Kubrick as the impact is not just on ‘Barry Lyndon’ but also on his last film, ‘Eyes Wide Shut’, as finely dressed characters glide through glittering, sexually charged opulence. The difference being ‘Madame De…’ feels genuinely sexy and erotic.
‘Madame De…’ is remarkable, however sometimes the style does take center stage and some of the steam can feel lost from the movie in the second half. At times ‘Madame De…’ radiates more light than heat. But what dazzling light it is.