Recent re-viewings of two Max Ophüls films, Madame de... and The Reckless Moment, prompted me to think about why I love his films so much and return to them so often. I read Molly Haskell's wonderful essay about Madame de... on Criterion's website (http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/547) and found this paragraph that encapsulates the genius of Ophüls: "Ophuls was so famous for his fluid cinematography that James Mason wrote an affectionate poem beginning, “A shot that does not call for tracks is agony for poor old Max.” But the roving camera and the visual glissandos were never virtuoso flourishes for their own sake; instead they were always attached to the movement of characters and revelatory of the movements of their souls."I've always been fascinated by films with long, Bazinian takes, especially those involving elaborate, fluid camera movement (obvious arthouse examples such as Mizoguchi, Jancso, Bela Tarr, Tarkovsky, but also Orson Welles in what I consider his greatest film, The Magnificent Ambersons, or Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise/Before Sunset, or the ending of Tsai Ming-Liang's Vive L'Amour, or Dreyer's final masterpiece, Gertrud). If Mizoguchi and Ophüls represent the pinnacle of this type of filmmaking, it's because their fluid camera style is inseparable from their consistent themes about the position of women in their respective societies.
Whether making a film noir set in postwar L.A. or a lush costume drama in turn-of-the-century France, his camera follows these women relentlessly as they play out their destinies. As a character in Madame de... says, they're "only superficially superficial."
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