CineAction articles from March 2002

CineAction archives from March 2002

Max Ophuls centenary.
March 22, 2002... "There's not much happiness in pleasure"--Le Plaisir This issue of CineAction celebrates the centenary of Max Ophuls, and the continuing significance and value of Ophuls' contributions to the cinema. Aside from a small group of cineastes,...

In memory.(Brief Article)
March 22, 2002... Billy Wilder 1906-2002 Jack Lemmon 1925-2001 Billy Wider on the set of Fedora (1978), one of his most underrated and neglected films. Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine in The Apartment (1960), the second of the seven...

Circles of delight and despair: the cinema of Max Ophuls.(Critical Essay)
March 22, 2002... "For me, life is movement." --Lola Montes Max Ophuls (ne Oppenheimer) was born in Saarbrucken in 1902 and died in Hamburg in 1957. Throughout his life, he made over twenty films in five different languages but principally in German,...

Plunging off the deep end into the reckless moment.(criticism of Max Ophlus' film 'The Reckless Moment')(Critical Essay)
March 22, 2002... The recent appearance of The Deep End (Scott McGehee, David Siegel) gives a particular resonance to the film of which it appears to be a remake: Max Ophuls' last Hollywood film The Reckless Moment (1949), which in my opinion deserves far more...

Falling women and fallible narrators.(criticism of Max Ophul's works)(Critical Essay)
March 22, 2002... Several of Ophuls' late films make elaborate use of narrators who are, in varying ways, both storytellers and characters within the fictional worlds: Lisa (Joan Fontaine) in Letter From an Unknown Woman, the meneur de jeu (Anton Walbrook) in La...

Werther.(Critical Essay)
March 22, 2002... (Max Ophuls, 1938) From Richardson, both Goethe and Rousseau learned the basic lesson that the subject of the novel is the "human heart", which is to say, the psyche in all its complexities and dark self-conceits, but especially at the...

Yoshiwara: Max Ophuls in the empire of passion.(Critical Essay)
March 22, 2002... The period of exile between Max Ophuls' departure from Germany after the rise of Hitler and his flight to America after the fall of France remains the most neglected portion of his career. Of the nine films he directed, mainly in France, during...

Captivated by Garbo: Max Ophuls' Roman interlude with the 'Duchess of Langeais'.(Greta Garbo)(Critical Essay)
March 22, 2002... A pity forever! That would have become a huge success," sighed Max Ophuls late in 1950 to the Frankfurter Rundschau's Dieter Fritko about the demise of producer Walter Wanger's Greta Garbo project, a film based on Balzac's La Duchesse de...

"Do I disgust you?" or, tirez pas sur La Pianiste.(Critical Essay)
March 22, 2002... Michael Haneke's latest film has received, to say the least, a mixed reception, both from critics and from audiences. Its Grand Prix at Cannes (plus the awards to its two leading actors) must be seen as something of an act of courage on the...

Icons and subversion in the Westerns of Clint Eastwood.(Critical Essay)
March 22, 2002... Clint Eastwood's star image--the figure of the Gunslinger called "The Man With No Name" -- is rooted in the Western genre. Although later broadened to that of the man of violent vigilante action (by films such as the "Dirty Harry" series), the...

Fred and Ginger: A Vision of Emersonian Hollywood? (Book Review).(Book Review)
March 22, 2002... Astaire & Rogers By Edward Gallafent, New York: Columbia University Press, 2002 The turn of the new century has witnessed a body of remarkable texts within film studies that have directly engaged with, or been subtly informed by,...

Letters.
March 22, 2002... To the editors of CineAction: I have read with considerable pleasure Robin Wood's article on "Hollywood High School Movies of the 90s" in CineAction #58. Like Mr. Wood I have enjoyed a number of these movies, and feel the "generic cycle"...