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Synopsis

Simone Signoret, Anton Walbrook, and Simone Simon lead a roundelay of French stars in Max Ophuls’s delightful, acerbic adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s controversial turn-of-the-century play Reigen. Soldiers, chambermaids, poets, prostitutes, aristocrats—all are on equal footing in this multicharacter merry-go-round of love and infidelity, directed with a sweeping gaiety as knowingly frivolous as it is enchanting, and shot with Ophuls’s trademark mellifluous cinematography. –The Criterion Collection

Director

Original

Max Ophüls

Max Ophüls (born Maximillian Oppenheimer, 6 May 1902, Saarbrücken, Germany – 25 March 1957, Hamburg, Germany) was an influential German-born film director who worked in Germany, the United States and France. He made nearly thirty films.

He started his career as a stage actor in 1919 but moved into theatre production in 1924. Two years later, he became creative director of the Burgtheater in Vienna and, having had 200 plays to his credit, turned to film production in 1929, when he became a dialogue director under Anatole Litvak at UFA in Berlin. He worked throughout Germany and directed his first film in 1931, the comedy short Dann schon lieber Lebertran (literally In This Case, Rather Cod-Liver Oil).

Of his early films, the most acclaimed is Liebelei (1933), which included a number of the characteristic elements for which he was to become known: luxurious sets, a feminist attitude, and a duel between a younger and older man.

Predicting… read more

Wall

Displaying 4 of 13 wall posts.
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trolley freak

13May12

After a brief but successful stay in Hollywood German-born Ophuls returned to his adopted France and ended his career with four highly regarded films, of which this is the first. Set in a fairytale Vienna quite unlike the one shown by Reed in the previous year's The Third Man, Walbrook is the master of ceremonies who narrates a series of stories about brief encounters and love affairs. Stylish and supremely elegant..

crmantao likes this

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Rohit

19Mar12

I know now where F for Fake comes from.

Varun Anisetty likes this

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Paddy Misfit

2Jan12

A perfect concept for Ophüls. I can picture him loving every second of making La Ronde.

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Vaida Kazlauskaitė

9Dec11

Funny, stylish, elegant. Few films as such are produced nowadays..

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Untitled

By asuraf on November 30, 2008

Director Max Ophuls is best known for four films made in France following a war imposed exile to Hollywood, films that examine the decadence and sexual politics of turn-of-the-century Paris with a…  read review

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Anton Walbrook's dialogue

2 posts by 1 person over 1 year ago

DVD

Buy the DVD from The Criterion Collection.