Max Ophüls

A refugee from Nazi Germany, Ophüls worked in Germany (1931–33), France (1933–40 and 1950–57), and the United States (1947–50). He made nearly 30 films, the latter ones being especially notable: Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), The Reckless Moment (1949), La Ronde (1950), Le Plaisir (1952), The Earrings of Madame de… (1953), and Lola Montès (1955).

Ophüls was born Maximillian Oppenheimer in Saarbrücken, Germany, the son of Leopold Oppenheimer, a Jewish textile manufacturer and owner of several textile shops in Germany, and his wife Helene Oppenheimer (née Bamberger). He took the pseudonym Ophüls during the early part of his theatrical career so that, should he fail, it would not embarrass his father.

Initially envisioning an acting career, he started as a stage actor in 1919 and played at the Aachen Theatre from 1921 to 1923. He then worked as a theater director, becoming the first director at the city theater of Dortmund. Ophüls moved into theatre production in 1924. He became creative director of the Burgtheater in Vienna in 1926. Having had 200 plays to his credit, he turned to film production in 1929, when he became a dialogue director under Anatole Litvak at UFA in Berlin. He worked throughout Germany and in 1931 directed his first film, the comedy short Dann schon lieber Lebertran (literally In This Case, Rather Cod-Liver Oil). Of his early films, the most acclaimed is Liebelei (1933), which has a number of the elements for which he became known: luxurious sets, a feminist attitude, and a duel between a younger and an older man.

Predicting the Nazi ascendancy, Ophüls, a Jew, fled to France in 1933 after the Reichstag fire and became a French citizen in 1938. After France fell to Germany, he traveled through Switzerland and Italy, where he had directed Everybody's Woman (1934). In July 1941, before leaving for the United States, he stayed in Portugal, in Estoril, at Casa Mar e Sol. Once in Hollywood, championed by director Preston Sturges, a longtime fan, he directed a number of distinguished films. His first Hollywood film was the Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. vehicle The Exile (1947). Ophüls's Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), derived from a Stefan Zweig novella, is the most highly regarded of the American films. Caught (1949) and The Reckless Moment (1949) followed before his return to Europe in 1950. Back in France, Ophüls directed and collaborated on the adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler's La Ronde (1950), which won the 1951 BAFTA Award for Best Film, and Lola Montès (1955), starring Martine Carol and Peter Ustinov, as well as Le Plaisir and The Earrings of Madame de... (1953), the latter with Danielle Darrieux and Charles Boyer, which capped his career.

All his works feature his distinctive smooth camera movements, complex crane and dolly sweeps, and tracking shots. Ophüls' style inspired Stanley Kubrick, who once stated that Ophüls "did some brilliant work. I particularly admired his fluid camera techniques." Paul Thomas Anderson gave an introduction on the restored DVD of The Earrings of Madame de... (1953). Some of his films are narrated from the point of view of the female protagonist. Film scholars have analyzed films such as Liebelei (1933), Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), and Madame de... (1953) as examples of the woman's film genre. Nearly all of his female protagonists had names beginning with "L" (Leonora, Lisa, Lucia, Louise, Lola, etc.) Actor James Mason, who worked with Ophüls on two films, wrote a short poem about the director's love for tracking shots and elaborate camera movements: A shot that does not call for tracks Is agony for poor dear Max, Who, separated from his dolly, Is wrapped in deepest melancholy. Once, when they took away his crane, I thought he'd never smile again.

At the Burgtheater, Ophüls met the actress Hildegard "Hilde" Wall. They married in 1926, remaining together until his death. Their son, Marcel Ophüls, became a prominent documentarian, director of The Sorrow and the Pity and other films examining the nature of political power.

Ophüls died from rheumatic heart disease on 26 March 1957 in Hamburg, while shooting interiors on Montparnasse 19, a biopic of Amedeo Modigliani, and was buried in Le Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. This final film was completed by his friend Jacques Becker.