Noah's Western Ark

Film: Stagecoach
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on big ol’ television.


Consider for a moment Noah’s Ark. I don’t care if you’re a strict fundamentalist (and if you are, you probably aren’t reading my blog in the first place) or if you find it a disturbing piece of Jehovah fan fiction. For just a moment, consider the story. Noah takes a motley assortment of critters onto a big boat, and then the boat sails through treacherous waters to arrive safely at the end. Noah’s Ark is a good metaphor for a particular type of movie. Put a bunch of very different people on or in the same vehicle and send them on their way. If things get boring, add some problems.

And thus we have John Ford’s Stagecoach, where the mode of conveyance is, of course, a stagecoach driving over and over through the same valley (really) through Apache country. There are soldiers, conflicts, rampaging natives, chases, the birth of a child, moral superiority, close calls, and a cavalry charge to save the day. If you’re wondering where a lot of the conventions in Westerns came from, you need look no further.

Essentially, we have a stagecoach leaving one town and headed for another. The locations and names of the towns aren’t important. Thrown onto the stage we have a motley assortment of Old Time West-y folks who have many, many reasons to dislike each other intently. Naturally, this means that they’ll be travelling together in close quarters. Inside the coach, we have Dallas (Claire Trevor), a woman of fallen moral character, who is being run out of town by the decency league of morally upright women. Going with her is the drunken town doctor (Thomas Mitchell), being kicked out for his own moral failings.

We’ve also got one of those morally upright (and uptight) women (Louise Platt), who is married to a soldier at a nearby fort. She’s pregnant, although no one knows this at first. We have the perpetually afraid and nervous whiskey salesman, Peacock (Donald Meek) who would much rather turn around than plow through dangerous territory. A bank manager named Gatewood (Berton Churchill) is desperate to leave town because he’s stealing $50,000 in payroll from the Western Union. We also have a slick gambler (John Carradine) who claims to be going for the protection of the women.

On top of the stage we have Buck (Andy Devine) and Curley (George Bancroft), who happens to be the sheriff. He’s going because a dangerous criminal named the Ringo Kid (John Wayne) happens to have broken out of prison and Curley is anxious to bring him back in. Ringo is looking for some payback on a man named Luke Plummer, and he broke out of jail to get it. It’s evident that both Buck and Curley like the Kid, but Curley has a job to do as the sheriff, and he’s going to do it. The coach encounters the Kid just as it leaves town, and the Kid hops a ride, since the eventual goal of the coach is to get to the town where Luke Plummer is waiting.

It’s easy to look at this film and assume that John Wayne’s character is the center because these days, he’s easily the most famous and well known face in the bunch (although it was Mitchell who won an Oscar for his role, and he’s incredibly familiar as the uncle in It’s a Wonderful Life). That’s a mistake, though. While Wayne’s character is important to the overall narrative, each of the characters on and around the stagecoach has his or her important role to play. Those who start in the positions of moral and social authority—the pregnant woman, the gambler, and the bank manager—end up fallen in some way by the end of the film. Those in low status—the criminal, the prostitute, the coward, and the drunk—all end up redeemed. Each character is critical, and each has his or her moments. Peacock, for instance, is so meek and unassuming that he can’t get anyone to get his name or occupation straight (he’s mistaken for a preacher frequently) until the very end of the movie, after he’s been wounded and survived. Our society matron ends up depending on Dallas the prostitute for assistance, comfort, and care of her child; in fact, it is Dallas who carries the child for almost the entire movie that we are aware of a child. The pregnancy is hidden throughout, and the mother is never seen holding her own infant.

In short, it’s the relationships that happen between the people that are the real thrust of Stagecoach. The ensemble nature of the story and the cast is what drives the film, not Wayne’s performance. If any character is the true center of the film, it is Claire Trevor’s Dallas. When the Ringo Kid goes to confront his nemeses, we see only the beginnings of the fight, and our focus is immediately shifted to Dallas and her concern with the aftermath.

In a world where the Western has become a clichéd film genre, it’s difficult to attempt to watch these clichés unfold without reacting to them in a jaded fashion. It’s important to keep in mind with a film like Stagecoach that in many way, the conventions of the last-minute cavalry rescue, the town drunk, the hooker with the heart of gold, and many of the other standard characters and tropes of the genre were still being invented.

It wouldn’t be a stretch to suggest that as a Western, Stagecoach looks its age. There’s no real way around the fact that this film would probably flop if made exactly like this today. However, there’s much more here than just a standard Western. Stagecoach is worth watching for what Ford was able to accomplish with not just story, but with a cast this large and this good, and with a cast of characters this diverse and yet complete. Are the characters one- and two-dimensional? Perhaps, but each one a complete story arc, and each one grows and changes over the course of the film. The drunk reforms, the whiskey salesmen survives through his fear, the society dame has her prejudice revealed, the bank manager is destroyed. Even Ringo, his revenge complete, has realized that it’s time to stop being a wild gun and time to settle down and raise a family.

In short, don’t watch it because it’s a great Western. Watch it because Ford was a great director, and this is still a great film.

Why to watch Stagecoach: It’s the film that made John Wayne a star.
Why not to watch: Just because many clichés started here, it doesn’t mean they don’t still read as clichés.

Bette Davis Eyes

Film: Now, Voyager
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on big ol’ television.

Sometimes, people have really good years. If you’d asked me a few months ago to define a good year for an actor, I’d have suggested James Mason in 1959; he was in Journey to the Center of the Earth and North by Northwest, which is the greatest film in the world in your humble narrator’s opinion. However, I might now suggest that both Claude Rains and Paul Henreid may have had the finest year ever in 1942. Both were in Casablanca, and almost weren’t because they were kept overlong filming Now, Voyager for Irving Rapper.

We start in the Vale home of Boston, and they are frequently referred to as “The Vales,” so you know they’re moneyed. Charlotte Vale (Bette Davis) is the spinster daughter of Mrs. Henry Vale (Gladys Cooper), who is unquestionably in the running for most horrifying mother in screen history. Charlotte’s life is cloistered—there’s no other real way to put it. She’s virtually a shut in, dumpy, and completely under the thumb of her vicious and reprehensible mother. She’s also on the verge of a nervous breakdown, equally because of her mother.

Into this stew of misery enters Dr. Jaquith (Claude Rains), one of the greatest psychiatrists in the world. She confesses her pitiful life to him, including the fact that her one brief romance was squashed by Mommy Dearest and she is desperately unhappy. He is convinced that she could recover completely if she spent a little time at his sanitarium up in Vermont. She goes, and we discover that indeed, the stay in the sanitarium changes her dramatically. Rather than rush home to see mother again, she instead takes a cruise, where her life changes even more.

It is here that she meets Jerry Durrance (Paul Henreid), a married man with a terrible marriage and a daughter very much like Charlotte. She and Jerry are strongly attracted to each other despite his situation. The cruise ends up in Rio de Janeiro and the pair go for a ride with a driver who speaks no English. When they end up in an accident that destroys the car, the two are stranded for a night. Naturally, the movie magic happens, and the two of them end up very much in love. She misses the boat, and he convinces her to stay with him for five days before catching the boat in Buenos Aires. Love blooms, of course, although both of them know it is doomed.

Eventually, Charlotte goes back home and confronts Mother, who is having none of it. However, Charlotte sticks to her guns and defies her mother. It helps that she receives a gift of flowers from Jerry, which gives her courage. At a dinner, before which Mother damages her ankle, Charlotte takes charge and much to the shock of her relatives, is charming and in command. It is here that she meets Elliot Livingston (John Loder), and the two begin a courtship despite the fact that her true love is Jerry.

She and Jerry meet again at a party, and suddenly romance is in bloom again. On a whim, Charlotte ends the romance with Elliot, cancelling their impending nuptials. When she announces this to her mother, Mother obliges everyone in the audience by keeling over with a heart attack and expiring. Charlotte inherits everything, but is so guilt-ridden that she immediately returns to the sanitarium.

It’s here that she meets Christina (Janis Wilson, who is strangely uncredited for being so central to the film), who happens to be the daughter of Jerry. She is immediately taken with the girl, in part because she reminds her of herself and partly because she is Jerry’s daughter. And, of course, this means that once again she is tied up in the life of Jerry Durrance.

Now, Voyager is not the happiest movie in the world, which might well seem strange for a romance from the mid-1940s. Movies from this era, the country in the middle of a terrible war on two fronts, tended to be happy affairs because the country needed them. This one doesn’t go for the feel-good, though, which does nothing for me but make me respected it all the more. It goes where it should and where it needs to.

One of the great things about the film is not just the acting of Bette Davis, but the role itself. Charlotte Vale, who starts as such a pitiable character ends up as a truly strong woman in charge of her own destiny. It’s a fantastic transformation, and one that is actually believable. Her final scene with Jerry is one of the great scenes from any film, and certainly the most affecting in the film.

Aside from the final line, the great moment in the film happens three times—Jerry plants two cigarettes in his mouth, lights both, and gives one to Charlotte. It seems so natural and such a magically subtle piece of intimacy that it almost seems impossible that it was scripted.

It’s also worth noting that the great characters in the film are not limited to Charlotte, the love-struck Jerry, and the highly entertaining and forthright doctor. My absolute favorite character in the film is Mrs. Vale’s private nurse, Dora (Mary Wickes). She’s a firecracker, and is a small breath of comedy in what is otherwise the very model of what people are thinking of when they think “tear-jerker.”

This is an impressive film, that is, I think, more relevant and accessible today than it was when first filmed. There’s a sense of real backbone in the character of Charlotte Vale, a sense of feminism before the word had a meaning that resonates very powerfully today. Sometimes films age like vinegar and sometimes they age like fine wine. Now, Voyager is the second sort; it’s gotten better with age.

It’s worth noting that this is not a film that could easily be remade. The sensibilities of the 1940s are very important to this movie. Today, Jerry would get divorced from his shrew of a wife and marry Charlotte a couple of days after the cruise, destroying the entire second half of the film. The fact that their love cannot be is what drives the entire narrative structure of the film. I’m perfectly fine with this; since the film wouldn’t work in that sense for a modern audience, it means that any attempt to bring this movie into the current era is virtually doomed from the outset. Good. This one should be left alone as the classic it is.

Why to watch Now, Voyager: Bette Davis at the absolute top of her very strong game.
Why not to watch: The waves of pure, entitled evil that waft off Mrs. Vale.

Living Through Another Cuba

Film: Memorias de Subdesarrollo (Memories of Underdevelopment)
Format: VHS from Black Hawk College through interlibrary loan on big ol’ television.

Aside from Ricky Ricardo, Fidel Castro, cigars, and GitMo, what can you tell me about Cuba? I admit to a lack of knowledge about the little communist stronghold to America’s southeast, so I was curious to see the only Cuban entry (I think) in “The Book.” Tomas Gutierrez Alea’s Memorias de Subdesarrollo (Memories of Underdevelopment) is in part archive of the Cuban revolution and in part the story of a man trying to find his way in a world that has suddenly and irrevocably changed around him.

Our guide through this new Cuba (the film is set between the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis) as well as the focus of the film, the subject of and source of the meditations, is Sergio (Sergio Corrieri), a middle-aged failed writer and former member of the bourgeoisie class. While he contemplates the various changes that have taken place in Cuba, he also contemplates the three main relationships he has had with women in his life: Hanna, his first great love; Laura, his wife who has left for Miami; and Elena (Daisy Grenados), a young and fairly dim but pretty girl who accuses him of rape.

Of these three women, it is Elena who we spend the most time with. She is attractive, but not very bright or educated. While touring Hemingway’s Cuban home, for instance, she refers to him as “Mr. Way.” Sergio is attracted to her for a number of reasons, not the least of which is her natural beauty. Beyond that, though, he comments that he finds women more attractive when they are made that way by things—natural beauty itself isn’t that appealing, but women who have been made beautiful by nice clothing, cosmetics, and the like are appealing to him. In Elena, he has a girl he can essentially turn into what he wants. He does this at first by promising her his wife’s abandoned clothing.

We discover late in the film that Elena is only 16, and when Sergio doesn’t marry her, her family accuses him of taking advantage of her because of her mental deficiency. This is, aside from her apparent native dimness, the first we’ve seen of anything like forced sex on the girl. In fact, she seems like a pretty willing participant, and this is no doubt significant. A metaphor for the Cuban state, perhaps? Probably. It’s worth noting that the more “Cuban” sounding the women’s names become, the more they attempt to hurt Sergio. Hanna, who is German, is still on a pedestal in his mind, Laura is just sort of bitchy, and Elena is actively and aggressively seeking to do him harm.

The narrative here is really nothing special. A man’s wife leaves him for a better life in the United States while he stays in Cuba. After she leaves, he spends time with a younger woman who eventually accuses him of taking advantage of her. He also remembers his first love with a woman who eventually moved to New York while he stayed behind to run his father’s furniture store. That’s really it.

What is interesting is the style in which the film is told. Sergio’s narrative is not told in any sort of specific order. Instead, the film attempts to mimic the twisting and convoluted pathways of memory, jumping in time from past to present to past as one thing reminds Sergio of something else. We follow his train of thought as it spirals in on itself, looking at Elena and remembering Hanna, or remembering a conversation while having another in the present.

Slowly, the audience begins to realize that Sergio is, as he claims, terribly old for his 38 years. He’s lived a complete life, and now in the new Cuban state, there isn’t anything left for him, and also no reason for him to leave and start again somewhere else. Even being cleared of the charges leveled by Elena’s family give him nothing more than a brief respite from what he assumes will be the crushing weight of his own existence. Acquittal, in many ways, is just as bad as conviction. Either way, Sergio is still imprisoned.

Alea uses archival footage well, and the narrative, while jumpy, is not that hard to track. I think perhaps I’m too much amateur and not enough auteur to really grok the thing’s totality, though. I didn’t find it revelatory or revolutionary, and evidently, that’s a failing on my part.

Why to watch Memorias de Subdesarrollo: The heart and soul of Cuban cinema.
Why not to watch: Disjointed narrative

Month 11 Status Report

November has come and gone, and I'm still plugging away at the list. It's worth noting (since this was the goal) that while I didn't watch much in November, everything I watched was new to me. I realized (and still realize) that I've relied too much on films I've already seen, and too much on my personal collection this year.

Of the 820 or so still to watch, I've seen roughly 150, making the list of new-to-me films well over 650. I'm going to continue to concentrate on new-to-me films for the rest of the year, but it's impossible for me not to hit some Christmas movies and a few other beloved films before 2010 rings its last.

And then? Year 2 is just around the corner. Based on current projections, I should finish this up around 2013, assuming I can find all of the films. There are still some three or four dozen problematic ones, and I need to get on those--an issue since my local public library will emphatically not get audio-visual material through WorldCat. Two of the other libraries I can access won't do interlibrary loan for me. The fourth...well, I don't want to affect the librarian's numbers too much, so caution is required.

Ready for December? I am.

Ideology vs. Art

Film: Olympia 1: Teil—Fest der Volker (The Olympiad Part 1: Festival of the People), Olympia 2: Teil—Fest der Schonheit (The Olympiad Part 2: Festival of Beauty)
Format: VHS from Scott Community College (Part 1) and Muscatine Community College (Part 2) through interlibrary loan, both on big ol’ television.

First, a note: Both “The Book” and IMDB list the English title of the first part of Leni Riefenstahl’s documentary on the 1936 Olympics as “Festival of the Nations.” However, anyone with even a smattering of German will tell you that “Volker” translates as “folk,” or “people.” Thus, I’m going with the translation here that makes sense to me, which also happens to be the title given on the copy sitting next to me at the moment.

Admiring Leni Riefenstahl’s documentary duo Olympia 1: Teil—Fest der Volker, and Olympia 2: Teil—Fest der Schonheit (The Olympiad Part 1: Festival of the People and The Olympiad Part 2: Festival of Beauty, hereafter referred to as Olympia 1 and Olympia 2, and jointly as Olympia) is sort of like admiring the poetry of Ezra Pound. Ezra Pound—great poet, Nazi sympathizer. Leni Riefenstahl—groundbreaking filmmaker, essential component of Nazi propaganda machine. It can certainly be argued (and successfully, I think) that Riefenstahl did not support the Nazi racial ideology, but it can just as easily be argued that films like Olympia did a great deal to enhance the National Socialist agenda in the late 1930s. In a way, it feels like saying, “Y’know, Joe Stalin didn’t have much of a record as a humanitarian, but boy! What a dancer!”

This advancement of Nazi belief occurs only at the beginning and end of each part of the documentary. The opening of both films is decidedly Aryan, with blonde youth cavorting in various sports, often nude. In the first film, we see the torch coming from Greece to Berlin, with scenes of the torch being passed overlaid on a map of Europe as the torch makes it to the stadium. We also get a glimpse of the opening ceremonies, and how strange and fascinating it is to see (for instance) French and Canadian athletes marching into the stadium giving the Nazi salute.

The second film opens with a montage of male bodies diving and swimming. I’d call it homoerotic save for the fact that Riefenstahl was a woman. I guess I’ll just have to call it erotic and move on from there. Again, there is a particular Aryan-ness to this opening.

With both films, though, we move into the sports, and the coverage is surprisingly even-handed. We see, for instance, many events in which athletes from countries other than Germany win. Additionally, we often see the medal ceremonies and hear long stretches of national anthems other than “Deutschland Uber Alles.” Jesse Owens gets star treatment here, as he richly deserved. It’s noteworthy, though, because as a non-Caucasian, Owens is unquestionably “untermensch,” and not a part of Aryan ideology. Still, Riefenstahl depicts him as an athletic deity, which goes a long way in suggesting that her own racial politics were different from that of her bosses.

The first film deals almost entirely with track and field events, and we get them in ridiculous detail. We see people long jumping for huge stretches, throw after throw in the javelin and discus, and leap after leap in the pole vault. There’s some track and field in the second film, but it branches out into boating, rowing, cycling, field hockey, and other events that don’t center on the main stadium in Berlin. Again, the treatment is decidedly even-handed. We’re given a detailed account of the field hockey finals in which India destroyed Germany by a score of 8-1, hardly a victory for Aryan pride. Boxing, strangely enough, is missing entirely.

This is all worth noting, because Riefenstahl could have easily made this an Aryan-only film. Germany actually won the medal count in the 1936 Olympic Games with 89 total medals, several dozen more than the U.S., which finished second with a total of 56 medals.

Riefenstahl chooses to show the results of some events and not others. For instance, we see a great deal of men’s gymnastics, but get no commentary on the events, and hear the names of no winners. Other events that today have a much lower profile, like the Pentathlon, are given a full treatment here.

One of the most interesting things to see here is the differences in the various sports from then and now. Gymnastics evidently took place in the center of the main stadium outdoors. The high jump is particularly interesting since this Olympics took place years before the advent of Dick Fosbury and the “Fosbury Flop.” Some of the numbers feel low as well—the pole vault, for instance, was won with a jump of about 14.5 feet, which wouldn’t even qualify today.

The main reason that Olympia is worth watching at all is because of the revolutionary camera work. Riefenstahl manages to get camera angles that almost had to be intrusive in the events. There are shots directly under the high bars in jumping events, shots that feel so close to the athletes that I have trouble believing they didn’t affect performances. She manages to show the human body in action from virtually every possible angle, and in spite of any apparent ideological desires from her Nazi overlords, gives this treatment to people of all nationalities and colors.

The goal, essentially, appears to be the depiction of the human body as a work of art or a thing of beauty. She succeeds. Much of what we are shown is in crisply-filmed slow motion, allowing for a real study of the bodies in motion. And, since the bodies are in general those of highly trained and exquisitely fit athletes, there is a particular beauty to them, as well as a grace and sense of physical power.

If anything fails in the version of the film I watched (there are evidently three—German, English, and French), it’s the editing. In the second part, we see horse after horse in the steeplechase jump the same fence and into the same pond. We see dive after dive after dive off springboards, endless javelin tosses, and what feels like hours of guys jumping over bars. Women’s events are almost entirely ignored as well in favor of the men. Whether this is specific to her vision or demanded as a part of the commission she was given is unknown to me. It does leave a taste of “the job of women is to produce children for the 1,000-year Reich,” though.

Regardless of these issues, Olympia is the beginning of the sports documentary, and has influenced generations of filmmakers since it was first unveiled. It may feel like weak sauce in this day and age of continual and continuous sports coverage, but virtually every sports movie, most documentaries, and certainly everything ever produced by NFL Films owes Leni Riefenstahl a debt that cannot be fully repaid.

In other words, “Leni Riefenstahl’s politics might have been a little suspect, but boy! What a filmmaker!”

Why to watch Olympia: Revolutionary coverage of sports.
Why not to watch: How many horses do you want to see jump into the same puddle?

Closer than a Close-Up

Film: Faces
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on laptop.

There are few directors in cinematic history who could get the sort of honest portrayal of real life the way John Cassavetes could. There are few films that demonstrate this particular skill as well as Faces. Faces is a film about infidelity, about loneliness, about looking for a way to fill the emptiness of life. Specifically, that emptiness here is being filled up with new relationships, sex, and worthless pleasure.

Cassavetes’s other talent is depicting dialogue that comes across tonally as being truly reflective of real dialogue, a skill only matched in recent years by Tarantino. The people in Cassavetes’s films talk like real people. They swing from happy to angry, aggressive to passive, laughing uproariously to devastated because of a wrong statement or a word that doesn’t strike the correct tone. A lot of this happens, at least in this film, because the characters are constantly fueled by lakes of booze. There’s a lot of laughter in this film, and it really comes across as genuine. Interestingly, and tellingly for this film, a great deal of this laughter is not only honest in appearance, and seems to be hiding something deeper and uglier.

Our main character is Richard Forst (John Morley), who has a loveless marriage with Maria (Lynn Carlin). He looks for happiness with Jeannie (Gena Rowlands), a young and attractive woman who may or may not be a prostitute, or at least something quite a bit like one. Maria has her own affairs with Chet (Seymour Cassel). Forst eventually leaves Maria and shows up at Jeannie’s place, where his relationship with her seems to mimic his marriage in many ways.

The central conceit here is that no one is really happy, no one really loves or cares about anyone else, no one has what he or she wants. There is a tremendous undercurrent of dissatisfaction in every conversation and on every face at all times. No matter the person, the person’s importance to the plot, or the length of time on screen, there is a terrible (in the original sense of the word) sense of wanting more and not quite knowing what is desired. Instead, there is a sense of desperation, of desire so strong that something must be done, but with no sense of what to do.

Faces was shot in high-contrast black and white, which has several effects on the film. The first is that there is a graininess that gives the film a particular grittiness. In essence, the film looks amateur, and because of this, it gives the impression of far less artifice and a deeper sense of reality. Second, the high contrast puts the faces in stark relief. Every flaw is exposed and real, which further adds to the overall sense reality.

So, while this film is fiction, a story, there is a sense here of documentary filmmaking, that this is a slice of someone’s reality. Certainly, there are any number of people who could have connected with this film on that level when it was made, and could connect with it now—laughing continuously so that there is no crying, finding no real enjoyment in anything but trying to fill up the gap in their lives with anything they can find, really enjoying nothing but telling themselves that they enjoy everything, except for those moments when they can no longer hide their inner pain, and every attempt to look for happiness ends up tawdry, failed, and laden with guilt feelings.

With a film like this, one that truly attempts to depict life rather than reflect a part of it, two questions become important: is it any good, and (in this case) do I like it. Faces is unquestionably great, something truly staggering in the way it is created, the way it looks, and its real attempt to show the tawdriness and crushing despair of daily life. Cassavetes has created a true work of art with this film, revealing and excising something painful beneath the skin of society.

Do I like it? On this score, I’m not as sure. This is not a terribly easy film to watch. There’s a lot of pain here, even when everyone is smiling and looks like he or she is having a great time. Everything is painful here—love, sex, friendship, conversation. Emotional and spiritual pain becomes an environment in this film, and while people try to escape from it for a few moments if they can, no one is ever really able to.

Ultimately, the question of whether or not I like this film becomes one of how much time I really want to spend being shown that life is a series of disappointments and unfulfilling experiences that essentially mean nothing in the grand scheme. I respect it, I appreciate it, I’m glad I watched it. I think that maybe that’s going to have to be enough for this one.

The last question regarding this film is the name. Of all the things that Cassavetes could have called this film, why Faces? If I had to make a guess (and I suppose, in a way, I do), I’d say that he called it this because a great deal of the film focuses on the faces of the characters. Much of the film is told in close up of one character or a pair.

Why to watch Faces: Cassavetes gets so close to reality that it’s uncomfortable.
Why not to watch: How much more reality do you really need?

Sin: More Fun to Experience than Listen to

Film: Lola Montes (The Sin of Lola Montes)
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library projected on big screen.

Max Ophuls is regarded as one of the greatest directors in film history. Shows what I know—as far as I know, I’d never seen anything he’s directed until today. Ophuls is best known for camera movement, particularly circular movements. If Lola Montes is any indication, he’s got a thing for picky little details and opulence as well.

Lola Montes, alternatively known as The Sin of Lola Montes, is the story of the eponymous woman, an Irish-born entertainer of questionable moral character. The film is loosely based on a real woman named Elizabeth (possibly Eliza) Oliver who used the stage name Lola Montes, posing as a Spanish dancer. Whatever her talents may have been, she is best known for her series of high profile love affairs.

The film, in what I can only assume is a huge chunk of artistic license, begins in a circus where the ringmaster (Peter Ustinov) is telling the audience that his troupe has a special member—the infamous Lola Montes (Martine Carol). The show starts with the audience being allowed to ask her anything (each question costs a quarter) about her scandalous life. From here, we start a series of flashbacks of Lola’s life, not really going further back than her first major affair, with composer Franz Liszt.

This is the path that the film will take over and over. The circus troupe essentially performs Lola’s life with Lola center stage, and we then regress into the major events of Lola’s life. The most significant is her affair with Ludwig I of Bavaria. The film follows her rise to something like power (as Ludwig’s concubine), her fall from grace, and ends with her eventual position as little more than a sideshow attraction at a circus, charging a dollar for men to approach her and kiss her hand while she sits in a cage near the menagerie.

So, obviously, it’s a rise and fall movie, with no corresponding rise at the end. There is no reward here, no redemption for anyone, least of all Senora Montes. At this point in her life, Lola is alive, but not really living. She’s going through the motions of life, (as evidenced by the decision of the circus to leave the net up when Lola performs on the high wire), but there is no longer anything in life for her to enjoy. The good part of her life is over—all she has left are her memories of faded lovers and times when her beauty did more than remind people what she once was.

It’s difficult, of course, to tell if the film version of Lola Montes is anything like the actual woman. The affairs with Liszt and Ludwig are at least based in fact. Beyond that, though, there’s really no way to know if the character portrayed by Martine Carol is anything like the woman who raised eyebrows around the continent for years. If I had to guess, though, I’d suggest that there are a few specific similarities combined with a host of inaccuracies, many of which are caused by the actor’s (or director’s) choice and/or limitations. That probably needs a better explanation.

The real life Lola Montes had numerous affairs in a very short amount of time. She married over and over, had to flee England because of bigamy charges, and appeared to change husbands like other people change their pants. She also seems not to have much in the way of real talent other than the talent of making men go bibbledy over her. The real woman must have been something very special. Martine Carol is nothing but flat. She seems not to have much personality on the screen. She’s sort of lifeless and passive, allowing things to happen to her rather than causing things to happen. Frankly, that’s kind of disappointing.

The circus, and the life told through flashback, are nice metaphors for this film. Lola’s life does appear to be something like a stage show—much more attractive from the audience than the reality of it could ever be. I like this metaphor quite a bit, actually. Lola is put into the spotlight as almost a cautionary tale—and more as a way to bring in the women customers as well, since the hope is that the women will want to live through the story as a sort of vicarious thrill.

Ophuls’s work is beautiful. There’s no denying that. But really, that’s all I have to say about it. Beyond the metaphor of the circus, I can’t say that Lola Montes made much of an impression on me in any way.

Why to watch Lola Montes: It’s your only chance to see Max Ophuls in color.
Why not to watch: It’s the same basic plot over and over.