Cinema
The Earrings of Madame de...
Madame de…
Max Ophüls · 1953
Synopsis
In Paris, in the Belle Époque, a countess weighed down by debts secretly sells the diamond earrings that her husband, a general, had given her for their wedding, and claims to have lost them at the Opera. The husband buys them back without saying anything and gives them to his mistress, who leaves for Constantinople and loses them there at gambling. An Italian diplomat, Baron Donati, acquires them in turn, then arrives in Paris and meets the countess.
Context
The film is drawn from a novel by Louise de Vilmorin published in 1951, adapted by Marcel Achard and Annette Wademant, and, like the book, it never gives the heroine any name other than Madame de… Danielle Darrieux plays the countess, Charles Boyer the general, Vittorio De Sica the diplomat. Ophüls deploys here the long camera movements that are his signature. Released on 16 September 1953, the film was nominated for the Academy Award for costume design.
Who it is for
About an hour and forty minutes; everything is conveyed by the movement of the camera and by what the characters leave unsaid.
Prizes and reception
Received with mixed reactions, it was ranked ninetieth in the 2022 Sight and Sound poll.
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