The Earrings of Madame De... (Diamond Earrings) (1953)
Average Rating: 8.9/10
Reviews Counted: 31
Fresh: 31 | Rotten: 0
Ophüls' graceful camerawork and visual portrayal of luxury and loss make Earrings a powerful French drama.
Average Rating: 7.7/10
Critic Reviews: 7
Fresh: 7 | Rotten: 0
Ophüls' graceful camerawork and visual portrayal of luxury and loss make Earrings a powerful French drama.
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Average Rating: 4.3/5
User Ratings: 1,729
Movie Info
Max Ophüls' masterpiece stars Danielle Darrieux as the titular Madame Louise de..., who in the film's opening scenes is forced to discreetly sell a pair of earrings, a gift from her military officer husband Andre (Charles Boyer), in order to make good on her debts. After she claims the earrings to be lost, the story of their possible theft hits the newspapers, prompting the jeweler who bought them (Jean Debucourt) to secretly sell them back to Andre, who then gives him to his mistress Lola (Lia
Jul 19, 1954 Wide
Sep 16, 2008
Criterion Collection
Watch It Now
Cast
-
Charles Boyer
Gen. Andre de... -
Danielle Darrieux
Countess Louise de .... -
Vittorio De Sica
Baron Fabrizio Donat... -
Jean Debucourt
M. Remy the jeweler -
Mireille Perrey
Mme. de. . .'s Nurse -
-
Madeleine Barbulée
Mme. de . . .'s Frie... -
Jean Galland
M de Bernac -
Serge Lecointe
Jerome -
Hubert Noël
Henri de Maleville -
Leon Walther
Theater manager -
Lea di Lea
Lola general's mistr... -
Lia Di Leo
Lola -
Guy Favières
Julien
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All Critics (33) | Top Critics (8) | Fresh (31) | Rotten (0) | DVD (9)
Slighter and more emotionally distant than Ophüls's masterpiece 'Letter from an Unknown Woman', but filled with a similar mood of romantic despair and desperation.
Top CriticOn one hand, Madame De . . . is all surface and style; on the other, it conveys real loss.
Three good reasons you should see The Earrings of Madame de ... are the presence and performances of Danielle Darrieux, Charles Boyer and Vittorio De Sica. This celestial triangle has never been surpassed in grace, charm and, yes, wit and humor.
Ophüls' penultimate film.
Like its turn-of-the-century décor and costuming, it is elegant and filled with decorative but basically unnecessary little items, which give it gentility and a nostalgic mood, but nothing much more substantial.
One of the most mannered and contrived love movies ever filmed. It glitters and dazzles, and beneath the artifice it creates a heart, and breaks it.
The cyclical nature of chance and coincidence takes on epic proportions here, as Ophuls masterfully transforms what initially seems like a borderline bedroom farce into a full-blown tragedy.
Ophuls didn't make it look effortless; he simply made it look flawless. Perfection that produces a sense of awe and the (accurate) impression that nobody else could have made it.
...exquisite, both in its lavish craftsmanship and in the way it captures the acute joy (and pain) of romantic love.
It's full of characteristically graceful tracking shots, the editing is superb, and in her third consecutive Ophüls film Darrieux has never looked more entrancing.
Deliciously blending Sacha Guitry's The Pearls of the Crown and Ophüls's own La Ronde, this is just about as polished as European cinema gets.
A superb film and a matchless trio of performances.
Because it's Ophüls, there's an aching sense of genuine heartbreak and loss beneath the sumptuous decor and poised, urbane ironies.
Elegant.
The tracking shots effortlessly glide down corridors, into rooms, through gardens. They particularly shine during two dancing scenes, where the smooth movements of the partners are echoed by the graceful camera capturing every move in perfect sync.
Ravisihing classic made at the height of Ophuls' career (La Ronde, Lola Montes), this much admired film is flawless in subtle narrative and lavish style as an indictment of socio-sexual mores of European aristocracy splendidly acted by Darrieux and Boyer
.. not just directed, not just choreographed, but sculpted in time and space, with actors and decor as the raw materials and the camera carving out the story.
Haunting romantic tragedy.
Rich in story and character.
The brilliance of "Earrings" is in the precision with which Ophuls carefully strips away all the luxury until what we see is not the extravagance, but the wounded, tragic marriage that the extravagance is meant to hide.
It's powerful stuff, but Ophuls' graceful, gliding camera movements provide a sense of beautiful inevitability.
Evanescence is an integral part of cinema, and no other director captured it as lyrically and yet as savagely as Ophüls.
Audience Reviews for The Earrings of Madame De... (Diamond Earrings)
That Louise could sell the earrings her husband gave her as a wedding present speaks of how she regarded her marriage to the General. It's not as if the general were a bad man or that they weren't quite suitable companions. "I don't like the person I've become in your eyes" says the general to Louise, who suddenly feels the painful sting of jealousy as he watches his wife fall in love with another man. The general, deep down, is quite a human character, perhaps even more so than the overly romantic Baron who comes to steal away his wife. The idea that people create these narrow pathes through life that they limit themselves to is not strictly the domain of the upper class of the past. Perhaps it's a lesson to be found in watching the, uhs... march to their own respective dooms in such orderly fashion.
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Foreign Titles
- Madame de... (DE)
- Madame De... (UK)
