The films of Max Ophüls (1902-1957) are very highly regarded by cinema historians (and by such practitioners as Todd Haynes [Far From Heaven, The Velvet Goldmine], who provides lengthy, plot-spoiling introduction to the Criterion disc of "Le Plaisir" ). I thought that his one color film, Lola Montès (1955), was boring and not very coherent, but I regard his English-language "Letter from an Unknown Woman" (1948, with Louis Jourdan as the recipient of a letter from Joan Fontaine) and "The Earrings of Madame de..." (1953, with Danielle Darrieux as Mme de., Charles Boyer as her husband and Vittorio De Sica as her lover) great masterpieces of cinema and of narration of loves not returned.

Ophüls's (1950) adaptation of Artur Schnitzler's "La Ronde" (with Simone Signoret playing a prostitute) and his American movie in which James Mason plays a version of Howard Hughes, "Caught" (1949), contain much of great merit. I have not seen any of the eighteen films he directed before "Letter," most of them in German, nor "The Reckless Moment" (1949, also starring James Mason in a story remade recently as "Deep End").

I was keenly anticipating the Criterion Edition release of Le Plaisir" (1951) based on three stories by Guy de Maupassant (1850-93) and am grateful yet again to Criterion for providing a superb print of a legendary heretofore little-available film, though I was somewhat disappointed by the middle (and longest) of the triptych. I would caution against watching Todd Haynes's "Introduction" before watching the film, though watching it after watching the movie, it collects the greatest of the extended tracking and dolly shots to examine again more closely. It also contains other bonus features of interest to those interested in Ophüls, including a discussion of the substitution of "The Model" ("Le Modèle") for Maupassant's pathbreaking representation of lesbians in "Paul's Mistress" (for which an elaborate set had been built, though there was no way that a film of the story would have been screen in the US of the mid-1950s: the prostitutes on holiday of "Le Maisson Tellier" already went over the line of what US censors permitted then).

I think the two short segments (about seven minutes each) framing "Le Maisson Tellier" are compelling as well as succinct. "Le Masque" shows a manic masked man (Jean Galland) unwilling to give up appearing to be a young dandy. The case is related by a physician (Claude Dauphin) who is at a ball where the masked man collapses and takes him to the man's home. "Le Modèle" shows a callous artist (Daniel Gélin as Jean) whose model/mistress (Simone Simon as Joséphine) is in love with him and threatens to commit suicide if he makes the socially advantageous marriage he plans. (Both stars of this segment had also been in Ophüls's "La Ronde," made the year before.) It has a stated thesis: "Possession is always followed by the disgust of familiarity," though that is more nearly the starting point than the ending point of the tale.

The men in "Le Maisson Tellier," most prominently Rivet (Jean Gabin) as a carpenter in rural Normandy whose sister, godmother of his daughter, Madame Tellier (Madeleine Rénaud), runs a bordello (seemingly in Deauville, called "Fécamp" in Maupassant's original story) make fools of themselves over the prostitutes who get a Saturday night off (to the dismay of regular customers who drink with them, etc.) accompanying Madame Tellier to her niece's first communion.

Extended opening narration and most of what happens in the story came directly from Maupassant, explaining that

"Madame, who came of a respectable family of peasant proprietors in the department of the Eure, had taken up her profession, just as she would have become a milliner or dressmaker. The prejudice against prostitution [which was and is legal in France] .... does not exist in the country places in Normandy. The peasant simply says: 'It is a paying business,' and send his daughter to keep a harem of fast girls, just as he would send her to keep a girls' school.... [She and her husband who got fat and died] soon made themselves liked by their staff and their neighbors."

Maupassant further explains (on the page, not in the film) of her brother, Rivet that "his sister's occupation did not trouble his scruples in the least, and, because nobody knew anything about it at Virville.... Nothing was known about her business." Moreover, being childless, she might leave her fortune to her god-daughter, so there was positive reason to maintain cordial relations and involve Mme. Tellier in her god-daughter's life.

The entourage of five prostitutes and their madame ride with a severe peasant family transporting ducks and with a more worldly man who cops a feel going through a tunnel. In the village, their fine clothes dazzle everyone, and their seeming piety is lauded by the priest. (This, too, is much clearer in Maupassant's original story.)

Why Rosa (the corpulent prostitute in the story, but Danielle Darrieux on screen) begins crying in church makes more sense (foreshadowing and explanation) in Maupassant's story than in Ophüls's movie, but provides yet another occasion for the famed Ophüls camera to move around the church during the contagion of crying.

After a big meal and Rivet accosting Rosa (this is muted to going into her room in the movie), the staff of Maison Tallier return and open for business, to the relief/delight of the customers who have been shocked to find their watering hole closed on the night before.

I think the pace (of the plot, not the camera!) is a bit turgid and that Gabin is less than convincing as a heart peasant (he seems very urban to me). It and the shorter segments all look great, however. The screen Maupassant (Jean Servais) proclaims that happiness is not a lark. The masked man's pursuit of pleasure is desperate as is Joséphine's clinging to Jean. The prostitutes laugh off the advances of easily besotted males in the middle segment which indeed is pretty much of a lark — a day and night off from work to visit the countryside.

In addition to Haynes's praise, the disc includes samples of English (Peter Ustinov) and German (Anton Walbrook) narration, a languid discourse about the production, and adaptation, including the planned one of "Paul's Mistress," by Jean-Pierre Berthomé, interview of surviving participants assistant director Tony Aboyantz, set decorator Robert Christides, and actor Daniel Gélin (Jean). I found Gélin's the most informative. The other two make clear that the effortless-seeming camera flow required considerable planning and hard work, which is not much of a surprise, though it may be easy to forget how bulky, heavy, and difficult to move movie cameras were in 1951. Christian Matras (who had shot "La Ronde" and would shoot "The Earrings of Madame de... " and "Lola Montès; and who had shot Jean Renoir's prewar classic "La grande illusion"), working on the first two stories, and Philippe Agostini (Le jour se lève, Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne,  Rififi), shooting the third when Matrais was otherwise committed, managed to bring off what Ophüls wanted.

Berthomé reveals that the original plans were for the novelist to engage the film-maker in dialogue rather than to address the audience. I guess this was too metafictional for 1951 producers (the original ones ran out of money, and "The Model" was financed by more family-oriented producers who would not back shooting the script of "Paul's Mistress"). Berthomé points out visual links between the framing stories that would have been difficult if the final tale, one of betrayal, had been "Paul's Mistress." Perhaps someone now can shoot Ophüls's script?

Along with the roughly contemporary "Les enfants terribles" with narration by Jean Cocteau, I think that "Le plaisir" demonstrates that telling, even telling what is also being shown sometimes works just fine (that is, that "Show, don't tell" is an overrated maxim). Sardonic voiceover narration is not something the nouvelle vogue directors abandoned in their revolt (that somehow excluded Becker, Cocteau, Ophüls, Renoir—in short, most of the major French film-makers of the decade before the new wave).


©  2008, Stephen O. Murray

With the extravagant mise-en-scène this review is a contribution  to the black-and-white movie writeoff, the good movie writeoff, and the French find one.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD