Description:
Simone Signoret, Anton Walbrook, and Simone Simon lead a roundelay of French stars in Max Ophuls's delightful, acerbic adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler's controversial turn-of-thecentury play La ronde. Soldiers, chambermaids, poets, and aristocrats, all are on equal footing in this multicharacter merry-go-round of love and infidelity, directed with a sweeping gaiety as knowingly frivolous as it is enchanting and shot with Ophuls's trademark intricate cinematography. SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES: New, restored high-definition digital transfer, Audio commentary featuring film scholar Susan White, author of The Cinema of Max Ophuls, Int
Simone Signoret, Anton Walbrook, and Simone Simon lead a roundelay of French stars in Max Ophuls's delightful, acerbic adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler's controversial turn-of-thecentury play La ronde. Soldiers, chambermaids, poets, and aristocrats, all are on equal footing in this multicharacter merry-go-round of love and infidelity, directed with a sweeping gaiety as knowingly frivolous as it is enchanting and shot with Ophuls's trademark intricate cinematography. SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES: New, restored high-definition digital transfer, Audio commentary featuring film scholar Susan White, author of The Cinema of Max Ophuls, Interview with Max Ophuls's son, the Academy Award winning filmmaker Marcel Ophuls
Interview with actor Daniel Gelin (Napoleon, Testament of Orpheus)
Interview with film scholar Alan Williams, Selected correspondence between Sir Laurence Olivier and Heinrich Schnitzler (the playwright's son), illustrating the controversy surrounding the source play
New and improved English subtitle translation. PLUS: A new essay by film critic Terrence Raffert
Amazon.com essential video
The exquisite circularity of the roundelay has always been an attractive cinematic device, but never has it been used with more delicacy and canny insight than in La Ronde, Max Ophüls's adaptation of the Arthur Schnitzler play Reigen. The camera glides, swirls, and delicately dances around fleeting moments between lovers, from chance meetings and secret trysts, to the sincere but hopeless courtship by a besotted admirer, to the relaxed banter of cuckolding married couples. Ophüls's wry glimpses behind closed doors and pulled curtains are both cynical and sweet, generous of character but suspect of motive. As one scene ends, we waltz along as the characters change partners and dance again and again; we follow streetwalkers and soldiers, courtesans and counts, until we come full circle. Returning to the superb metaphor of the carousel, where dapper Anton Walbrook wanders about as host and commentator (a sort of literary ringmaster, like Peter Ustinov in Lola Montes), Ophüls plays at the game of love with a cocked grim and a sly jab, though he never belittles or judges. What could easily have descended into farce is lifted into loving satire by Ophüls's elegant touch and sparkling wit. A huge success in Europe, its continental attitude wasn't embraced by American audiences at the time. But it has come to be regarded one of Ophüls's finest and most beautifully visualized films. Everyone is somebody's fool, and isn't it wonderful? --Sean Axmaker
... (more)
(less)
Manufacturer: Criterion
Release date: 16 September 2008
Number of discs: 1
EAN: 0715515031424 UPC: 715515031424
My tags:
Add tags