The Earrings of Madame de... (French title: Madame de...; Italian title: I gioielli di madame de...), a 1953 drama film directed by Max Ophüls, was adapted from Louise Leveque de Vilmorin's period novel by Ophüls, Marcel Archard and Annette Wadement. The film is considered a masterpiece of the 1950s French cinema. Andrew Sarris called it "the most perfect film ever made". Ophüls said the story's construction attracted him, stating "there is always the same axis around which the action continually turns like a carousel. A tiny, scarcely visible axis: a pair of earrings." In the UK the film is Madame de... and The Earrings of Madame de... in the USA.
Plot
The film opens with the titular Madame, Louise (Danielle Darrieux), whose surname is never given. She is a spoiled woman married to a General, André (Charles Boyer), and she has amassed considerable debts due to her lifestyle. To settle them, she arranges to sell her large diamond earrings, a wedding present from her husband, back to the jeweler who made them. It is hinted that Louise and André's marriage is less than intimate, as they sleep in separate beds and the General is shown to have a mistress. Louise attempts to disguise the disappearance of the earrings by pretending to have lost them at the opera. The search for them eventually reaches the newspaper, suggesting they may have been stolen, which in turn prompts the jeweler who bought them to go to the General directly and offer to sell them back, which he accepts. Rather than confront his wife, the General decides to give the earrings to his mistress, who is leaving for Constantinople.
The mistress however accumulates a substantial gambling debt and is forced to sell them. They are later purchased by an Italian baron, Fabrizio Donati (Vittorio De Sica), who is on his way to be a diplomat in the same city that Louise and André live in. At this time, the General has just gone away to war. At a series of chance encounters, Donati meets Louise and becomes infatuated with her, later meeting with her at a ballroom where they dance together. This evolves into an emotional affair, represented in a montage of dancing scenes where she and the baron fall in love. This sequence, with its glittering costumes and furnishings, and swirling camera work, was a celebrated example of Ophüls' style. The General returns from his campaign, which prompts Louise to stop seeing Donati. During a hunting trip with her husband, she witnesses Donati fall from his horse, which causes her to faint. This is due to an unknown medical condition she was born with, described only has having a "weak heart." This event makes the General suspicious about her relationship to Donati.
Donati later brings a gift to Louise at her home: roses and the very earrings she sold at the start of the film. What she had cast aside so easily before suddenly has real meaning to her. In order to be able to wear them again in her husband's presence, Louise creates a ruse that they had been misplaced in one of her gloves the entire time, making a big show of "finding" them in front of the General. He knows she is lying but says nothing. Later at another dance, the General takes the earrings from Louise and then quietly takes Donati aside and confronts him about the earrings, revealing their origin. He then gives the earrings to Donati and tells him to sell them back to the jeweler, so that the General may buy them back once more to give to Louise. Before departing, Donati informs Louise he can no longer see her and expresses his hurt at her lying to him. Following this night, Louise falls into a deep depression. The General presents her with the earrings he has bought back and informs her that her unhappiness is her own fault. He tells her she must give the earrings away to his niece who has just given birth, to which Louise tearfully agrees. The General's niece later is forced to sell the earrings to the jeweler to pay off her husband's debts, and once more the jeweler offers to sell them to the General, but this time he angrily refuses. Louise goes to the jeweler herself and offers to sell many of her precious items in order to buy the earrings back, and he agrees. She later informs the General of what she has done. In his anguish at having lost her love (or perhaps never having it), the General goes to the club were Donati is and challenges him to a pistol duel.
Louise pleads with Donati not to go through the duel, as the General is shown to be an excellent shot and will surely kill him. Donati refuses to back out and later meets with the General in the woods with officials for the duel. Meanwhile Louise goes to a church to pray that the saints save Donati and leaves the earrings as an offering. She then races through the woods with her servant to the location of the duel. The officials inform the two men that the General is allowed to fire first because he is the "offended party." He takes aim at Donati, who stands unflinching. Louise is shown ascending a hill toward the duel when a shot is heard. She collapses in shock and slumps against a tree. Her servant tries to wake her but Louise does not respond; the servant runs off towards the men to ask for help as the scene fades. The final shot of the film shows the earrings venerated at the church in a glass case, with a card that reads "don de Madame de..."
Cast
- Charles Boyer as Général André de...
- Danielle Darrieux as Comtesse Louise de...
- Vittorio De Sica as Baron Fabrizio Donati
- Jean Debucourt as Monsieur Rémy
- Jean Galland as Monsieur de Bernac
- Mireille Perrey as La Nourrice
- Paul Azaïs as Le premier cocher
- Josselin
- Hubert Noël as Henri de Maleville
- Lia Di Leo as Lola
Production
In Ophüls' original treatment for the film, every scene was to be shot through mirrors on walls and other locations. His producers rejected the idea. After his experience of shooting La Ronde, Ophüls was determined to stay on budget and on schedule for this film and made extensive preparations during pre-production. He ended up finishing the film ahead of schedule and under budget. He worked closely with art director Georges Annekov to create the right atmosphere for the film, and had Annekov design prop earrings that were appropriate. The prop earrings were on display at the Franco-London-Film production studios for many years.
The film's script became considerably different from de Vilmorin's short novel and Ophüls stated that "besides the earrings, there's very little of the novel left in the film...[just] the senselessness of that woman's life." Ophüls would speak privately with Danielle Darrieux between takes throughout the shooting and told her to portray the emptiness of her character. At first Ophüls was too embarrassed to give direction to Vittorio De Sica out of respect for De Sica's work as a director, but the two became friends during the film's production. Darrieux, Charles Boyer and Annekov had all worked together in 1936 on the film Mayerling, which was Darrieux's first leading role.
Reception
The film received mixed reviews when first released, but its reputation has grown over the years. It was revived in England in 1979, where it was rediscovered as a masterpiece. Derek Malcolm called it "a supreme piece of film-making which hardly puts a foot wrong for 2 hours...a magnificent and utterly timeless dissection of passion and affection, the game of life and love itself." Lindsay Anderson criticized the film, stating "the camera is never still; every shot has the tension of a conjuring trick. The sleight of hand is dazzling, but fatally distracting...With a supple, ingenious, glittering flow of images that is aesthetically the diametric opposite of Mme. de Vilmorin's chaste prose, he has made the film an excuse for a succession of rich, decorative displays...In all this visual frou-frou it is not surprising that the characters become lost and the interior development of the drama is almost completely unobserved." François Truffaut wrote that the film was very similar to Ophüls' earlier film Liebelei, stating that "the last half hour, the duel and the finale, is a remake pure and simple." Jacques Rivette praised the film, calling it "a difficult work, in the fullest sense of the word, even in its writing, one in which everything aims to disconcert, distract the viewer from what is essential through the accumulation of secondary actions, wrong turns, repetitions and delays; a work in which the picturesque tries hard to conceal the pathetic."
Molly Haskell has called the film a masterpiece with a cult following that grows every year. Haskell has asserted that the film is usually not as revered as other, more male-oriented films because it is a female-oriented film. Richard Roud has stated that Ophüls made film about "women. More specifically, women in love. Most often, women who are unhappily in love, or whom love brings misfortune of one kind or another."
Awards
In 1954, Georges Annenkov and Rosine Delamare were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Costume Design (black and white) but lost to Edith Head for Sabrina.
References
External links
- "Max Ophuls's Movie of Matchless Elegance" David Mermelstein, The Wall Street Journal, 7 August 2010
- The Earrings of Madame de... at the Internet Movie Database
- The Earrings of Madame de... at AllMovie
- The Earrings of Madame de... at the TCM Movie Database
- The Earrings of Madame De... at Rotten Tomatoes
- The Earrings of Madame de . . . review at DVDbeaver.com
- The Earrings of Madame de... at AllMovie