Word: lola
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...this sequence the ironic difference between the romantic view of Lola's life the ringmaster sells to the public, and the compulsion he knows propels her, is made clear to Lola and us. Lola is living in a hotel suite cluttered with objects and dividing walls. Her first sight of the ringmaster who comes to offer her a job (which she rejects at that time) is through a window frame. This establishes an isolation from other people amounting to virtual imprisonment (though with a certain freedom of action in the deep surrounding space). In this key scene the accumulated objects...
Back in the circus, the ringmaster drives Lola higher and higher, till at the top of her career she begins a romance with the King of Bavaria. And in this flashback Ophuls, relenting for a moment in his detailing of determination, describes more movingly than anywhere the simultaneous freedom and compulsion, calm and desperation, of Lola's romantic life...
...When Lola first meets the King his room is filled with depth, but each spot in it is exactly limted and structured by the regular columns which rise from floor to ceiling, by the regular wall-cornicing in the background, by the desk and steps which divide up the spacious floor. The two figures in this setting are not isolated, but not confined either. The integration of space and characters is perfect; its thematic parallel is the relation of these two personalities; strong yet subtle, passionate and deep yet completely controlled. Nevertheless Lola is in a desperate situation...
...FOLLOWING scenes show Lola's greatest happiness, living with the King in the grand, orderly, deep interiors of the palace. Nevertheless the other face of this setting, as of all the others, emerges at the end. A revolution against Lola's presence forces the King to leave her. The appearance of single figures -- first the Prime Minister's, then the King's, lastly hers--in the interiors, allows their orderliness to overcome the characters' free integration with them that was possible in two-shot. When only one figure is present, these spaces become oppressive, the partitions and columns assume more...
...style and the meaning of the whole sequence of events to this point show a great development for Ophuls. The settings (in particular the use of foreground objects) and the relatively static camera and quick cutting emphasize the fixity of Lola in her settings. Ophuls does not develop a romantic personality in the abstract; he derives the meaning of her life from her changing position and motion in a setting. The inescapability of Lola's physical settings, her existence in the physical world, is the reason her ambitions are defeated--but it's also the basis of her fleeting triumph...