Word: shows
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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THIS IRONIC contradiction between supposed free will but actual determinism continues throughout. The first flashback's subject--the end of Lola's affair with Frantz Lizst--couls show her perfectly free (it's constantly filled, for example, with romantic music), and therefore like the heroes of Ophuls' early films. But Ophuls' static one-shots emphasize the separateness of the two lovers. Large objects in these shots' foregrounds express their estrangement. The characters' harmonious existence depends now entirely on their restraint, their good taste (Lizst, for example, being a musician). There is no exuberant, graceful triumph over surroundings; the first time...
...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...
Lola MOntes will play at the Harvard Square, July 9-16. The M.I.T. Film Society will show Ophuls' Caught (1949) on July...
...with Mickey Rooney, Meet Me in St. Louis and Easter Parade) after making Oz, she had established herself as the best of a bevy of girlish filmland warblers that included Gloria Jean, Deanna Durbin and Jane Powell. But she could no longer handle the pressure of stardom. She began showing up for work late or sick, then did not show up at all. She was suspended once, twice, and finally, in 1950, fired for good...