“The Earrings of Madame de...,” directed in 1953 by Max Ophuls, is one of the most mannered and contrived love movies ever filmed. It glitters and dazzles, and beneath the artifice it creates a heart, and breaks it. The film is famous for its elaborate camera movements, its graceful style, its sets, its costumes and of course its jewelry. It stars Danielle Darrieux, Charles Boyer and Vittorio De Sica, who effortlessly embody elegance. It could have been a mannered trifle. We sit in admiration of Ophuls' visual display, so fluid and intricate. Then to our surprise we find ourselves caring.
The story takes place in Vienna a century or so ago. The General (Boyer) has married late, and well, to Louisa (Darrieux), a great beauty. He gives her expensive diamond earrings as a wedding present. As the film opens, Madame is desperately in debt, and rummaging among her possessions for something to sell. The camera follows her in an unbroken shot as she looks through dresses, furs, jewelry, and finally settles on the earrings, which she never liked anyway. “What will you tell your husband?” asks her servant. She will tell him that she lost them.
She trusts the discretion of Remy the jeweler. She should not. Remy, who originally sold the earrings to the General, tells him the whole story. The General buys back the earrings as a farewell present to his mistress, who is leaving him and going to Constantinople. Certainly the wife will never see them again, and there is poetic justice involved.
The mistress sells the earrings to finance her gambling. The Baron Donati (De Sica) buys them. In his travels he encounters the Countess Louisa, falls in love, courts her, and gives her the earrings. She is startled to see them, but intuits how they came into the Baron's hands. How to explain their reappearance to the General? In his presence, she goes through the motions of “finding” them. The General knows this is a falsehood, and the whole tissue of deceptions unravels, even though the jewels are bought and sold two more times. (There is always a laugh when the jeweler turns up in the General's office for “our usual transaction”).
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7s7vGnqmempWnwW%2BvzqZmq52mnrK4v46gqZ6ZpGK6sMLInmStoJVisqK%2B0aKloKtdpLNuucCdmKadXZmybn2Ybmo%3D