1948 Directed by Max Ophüls
A pianist about to flee from a duel receives a letter from a woman he cannot remember. As she tells the story of her lifelong love for him, he is forced to reinterpret his own past.
The key moment of this film is the second goodbye at the train, which suddenly becomes a moment of horror for Lisa. This horror should not occur, but the non-diegesis of Daniele Amfitheatrof's score combined with the sudden look of shock registered by Fontaine's face tell us that this moment is tragedy. What has happened exactly? Her son has exclaimed as the train rushes out the station that he expects to see her in two weeks. This is of course what happened with her one time love years ago, who she then abandoned in hoping never to force any pressures on her. But as it turns out, at least in her perception of the events, her decision to leave him…
Film #3 of Gustav's Recommendations
” I know now that nothing happens by chance. Every moment is measured; every step is counted.”
With a sad and heartbreaking story which addressees issues like destiny, love, dignity, pride and regret, Max Ophuls’ unappreciated little masterpiece, Letter From An Unknown Woman, is more like a story written by Leo Tolstoy, like the works of the Russian writer it takes place in dimly lit noble houses and chooses its characters from the upper-class society, it takes lonely characters and follows them across years as they go from happiness into misery and despair. What Ophuls does is that he turns his camera away from all the glamour of houses, clothes and concerts and instead focuses…
88/100
It's no surprise that these 'endless parades of arrivals and departures' that make Letter from an Unknown Woman take as much away from these characters as they give. It's these actions and the musicality of the performers' movements matched by the waltz the camera is frequently engaged in that creates Ophüls' tragic world wherein our central woman Lisa Berndle devotes her life to a man she seems destined not to be with. It's always a window or a door blocking Lisa from her love - or everything that, to her, represents her love - pertubed by her inability to reach him even through something most brittle. And finally, upon meeting, their attempt to capture missed opportunities and memories can…
So marvelously complex, proposing a link between spectacle and romantic delusions. It's the only of Ophuls' American films to capture the dialecticalisms of his 1950's work, yet like those prior, remain true to its narrative constructs. Lisa doesn't just live in her fantasy world, she believes it to exist in the world - her first set of outings with Stefan: candle-lit dinners, horse-drawn carriage rides, Viennese waltzes. We see this all through memory, but its Ophuls' genius to have them resemble something out of a elaborate costume drama. This dialectialism is clear once we get to the fake train ride, at the fair. But Stefan is just as much a lost soul - at least in this memory, during their…
A beautifully structured, endlessly revealing romantic drama of unrequited love and self-sacrifice injected with potent stylistic choices and elegant sensibility right down to its unforgettable denouement.
There have been dozens of films about unrequited love, about heartbreak, about the lives of two individuals taking different paths and there will continue to be, but Letter from an Unknown Woman stands above pretty much all of them. This forgotten 1948 romantic melodrama is an intensely engrossing piece of cinema well worth seeing for acclaimed German filmmaker Max Ophuls' stylistic direction. He was apparently known for his lyrical camera movements, the use of long tracking shots, and his atmospheric evocation of romantic melancholy—all of which are on full display here. It's a beautifully roasted chestnut well worth seeking out.
In my impression, this beautiful doomed romance is the movie other people see when they look at Brief Encounter that I always felt embarrassed for not locating in that film's staid dignity. Without fully giving in to any more than a suggestion of the raw sexuality that drives it, it puts the viewer's heart completely in sync with that of Joan Fontaine's Lisa, who's longed since adolescence for the promiscuous musician next door, a star-crossed passion that alters the course of her life. Surging with pain and desire, Max Ophuls' camera captures the simultaneous haze and detail of extreme lust as it lives in memory, which is exactly what the screenplay means to evoke (almost entirely patterned on the structure…
I've only read beware of pity as opposed to whatever zweig short story this is based on but its incredibly faithful to the style of that book.
'Letter from an Unknown Woman' just didn't work for me. Joan Fontaine plays a teenage girl who worships an older famed pianist and carefree bachelor played by Louis Jourdan (he most famously played the baddie in 'Octopussy'). She basically stalks him, following him around, spying on him and sneaking into his apartment when he is out. I think this is all supposed to be charming and romantic? When she has grown up they have a genuinely charming and romantic night together but she never tells him she loves him, or that she has become pregnant.
Ten years later she sees the pianist again, instantly deciding to break up her current marriage to a different (kind and honorable) man. Again she…
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