The following is one of the entries from my 100 Greatest Films from Germany, Scandinavia, Finland & Austria list, which I invite you to visit on this site if you haven’t already done so. The first two sentences here refer to the entry immediately preceding it in the list’s sequence. — Dennis
Kuhle Wampe (1932) was banned by Germany for the duration of Hitler’s reign. Deemed Communistic, it was banned most everywhere else in Europe as well. From a play by Arthur Schnitzler, Max Ophüls’s Liebelei was released in Germany in 1933, about a month after Hitler became chancellor, without the director’s or playwright’s name in the credits. Both men were Jewish. (Schnitzler had died the previous year.) By this time, Ophüls had fled to France. After the war, the Allies banned Liebelei, which is anti-militaristic and whose heroine commits suicide after the boy she loves, a young army lieutenant named Wolfgang, is killed in a duel.
Like Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), Liebelei takes place in Vienna at the turn of the century; and, like that later Ophüls film, it enmeshes a vulnerable girl’s aching love in the web of the time’s militaristic code of honor. The delay of Christine’s appearance in Liebelei reflects her insignificance in the male- and military-minded scheme of things. By contrast, she matters most to us because of Ophüls’s own feelings toward her and the poignancy of her enactment by Magda Schneider, Romy’s mother.
Structurally, Wolfgang’s military drills and related military obligations literally interrupt the course of his deepening romance with Christine. As a result, their encounters—their walk together at night, their dance, their sleigh ride—seem like stolen moments. Yet these are the most important moments of their lives and of their briefly shared life. (We see their dance trebly: directly; in a mirror; as wall shadows. We also see the boy dance with his mistress, whose husband will kill him when he no longer has any romantic connection to the man’s wife.)
Christine’s death, rendered by an expressive camera movement, remains one of the most heartbreaking moments in cinema.
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LIEBELEI (Max Ophüls, 1932)
By grunesThe following is one of the entries from my 100 Greatest Films from Germany, Scandinavia, Finland & Austria list, which I invite you to visit on this site if you haven’t already done so. The first two sentences here refer to the entry immediately preceding it in the list’s sequence. — Dennis
Kuhle Wampe (1932) was banned by Germany for the duration of Hitler’s reign. Deemed Communistic, it was banned most everywhere else in Europe as well. From a play by Arthur Schnitzler, Max Ophüls’s Liebelei was released in Germany in 1933, about a month after Hitler became chancellor, without the director’s or playwright’s name in the credits. Both men were Jewish. (Schnitzler had died the previous year.) By this time, Ophüls had fled to France. After the war, the Allies banned Liebelei, which is anti-militaristic and whose heroine commits suicide after the boy she loves, a young army lieutenant named Wolfgang, is killed in a duel.
Like Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), Liebelei takes place in Vienna at the turn of the century; and, like that later Ophüls film, it enmeshes a vulnerable girl’s aching love in the web of the time’s militaristic code of honor. The delay of Christine’s appearance in Liebelei reflects her insignificance in the male- and military-minded scheme of things. By contrast, she matters most to us because of Ophüls’s own feelings toward her and the poignancy of her enactment by Magda Schneider, Romy’s mother.
Structurally, Wolfgang’s military drills and related military obligations literally interrupt the course of his deepening romance with Christine. As a result, their encounters—their walk together at night, their dance, their sleigh ride—seem like stolen moments. Yet these are the most important moments of their lives and of their briefly shared life. (We see their dance trebly: directly; in a mirror; as wall shadows. We also see the boy dance with his mistress, whose husband will kill him when he no longer has any romantic connection to the man’s wife.)
Christine’s death, rendered by an expressive camera movement, remains one of the most heartbreaking moments in cinema.
Tags: Max Ophüls
This entry was posted on October 1, 2007 at 4:26 am and is filed under Formal Capsule Film Comments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.