Max Ophüls' 1955 masterpiece gets a superb restoration.
Lola Montes (1955)
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Reviews Counted: 19
Fresh: 15
Rotten:4
Average Rating: 7.5/10
Runtime: 1 hr 50 mins
Genre: Foreign Films
Theatrical Release: Oct 10, 2008 Limited
Synopsis: LOLA MONTES, the last film by Max Ophüls, is one of the most celebrated examples of both wide screen CinemaScope and lush Technicolor in film history. Added to this is Ophüls' usual use of sweeping crane shots and angled tracking shots,... LOLA MONTES, the last film by Max Ophüls, is one of the most celebrated examples of both wide screen CinemaScope and lush Technicolor in film history. Added to this is Ophüls' usual use of sweeping crane shots and angled tracking shots, making this a beautiful, creative film. It is the story of Lola Montes (Martine Carol), the 19th Century dancer who was famous for her scandalous affairs with everyone from Franz List (Will Quadflieg) to Ludwig, the King of Bavaria (Anton Walbrook). At the end of her career she was the main attraction at a circus in the United States which featured a lavish tableaux of scenes from her life. The ringmaster, played by Peter Ustinov, leads the circus audience through her life, and also cues the cinematic flashbacks. Ophüls had used a similar structure in his adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler's play REIGEN in his film LA RONDE. Here, although not in chronological order, the flashbacks span Lola's life, covering everything from her early unhappy marriage to a drunken military officer, who she leaves to embark on a career as a dancer, to a very short affair with a German student played by a young Oskar Werner. Ophüls, with his always-moving camera, gives the story a wonderful sense of historical drama. [More]
Starring: Martine Carol, Peter Ustinov, Anton Walbrook, Oskar Werner
Starring: Martine Carol, Peter Ustinov, Anton Walbrook, Oskar Werner, Will Quadflieg, Paulette Dubost
Director: Max Ophuls
Director: Max Ophuls
Screenwriter: Annette Wademant, Max Ophuls
Producer: Ralph Baum
Composer: Georges Auric
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Reviews for Lola Montes
In some odd way, the huge production scale and marvelous widescreen color scheme make Lola Montès seem more distant and artificial than Ophüls’ smaller-scale black-and-white films.
Some fetching period observation appears from time to time, but life is rarely breathed into this frilly opus.
A baroque masterpiece by Max Ophuls, his last film (1955) and his only work in color and wide-screen.
Lola Montès could never be confused for realism in any format: home video, theater or iPod. But its effectiveness as a tragedy relies on Ophüls setting out a luxurious spread for his hapless heroine.
I recommend Lola Montès wholeheartedly both for its sensuous delights and its ever exquisite artistry.
Ophüls' style co-stars, paralleling and reinforcing stage artificiality with tracking and crane and pan shots, fluidly tilting to emphasize romance as opposed to "reality."
A bodice-ripper invested with the profundity of a Stendhal novel, Lola Montes is also, even more than La Ronde, Ophüls's definite commentary on movie-watching.
The idea behind this biopic might be brilliant but I didn't see the film's magic onscreen.
Ophüls conjures that space into life -- indeed, makes it the very subject of his film -- by means of the most sumptuous stylistic effects imaginable.
It is all of a piece from beginning to end: The mood, the music, the remarkably fluid camera movement, the sets, the costumes.
Much truncated on the first release, and financially ruining its producers, this is a superb film, inspiring Kubrick among others.
Ophüls makes the story of Lola Montes (Martine Carol), the successful nineteenth-century courtesan (if only so-so Spanish fandango dancer), into a visually dazzling, ironic commentary on celebrity.
Andrew Sarris in 1963 dubbed this film the greatest ever made, and although he's noted for his quirky opinions, he's no fool.
The clunky Cinemascope camera does not allow Ophuls to move as often or as delicately as he was used to.
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