Brief einer Unbekannten

Deeply moving story from one of cinema's great stylists, Max Ophuls (Le Ronde, Earrings of Madam De…, Lola Montes), stars Jane Fonatain as Lisa, a young woman hopelessly in love with dashing but callous piano player Stefan (Louis Jordan). Fontain played perhaps the best role of her career and was incredibly touching and convincing as a teenage girl (she was 31 when she took the part) that fell in love from the first sight and whose whole life was under the spell of this rare unrequited love that was recognized, alas, too late. One may ask how such a beautiful, sublime, and charming creature like Lisa would carry a torch through the years for a man who uses her without pity and does not remembers her name or her face – well, the mystery of love is unsolvable. King Solomon, one of the wisest men ever lived said once, "There are three things I can't explain, and one, I can't understand - the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a ship in the sea, the way of a snake crawling up the mountain, and the way of a man to the heart of a woman." I guess, nowadays we can explain the first three mysteries but never will be able to understand the fourth one... Max Ophuls' who had worked in many European countries and "gave camera movement its finest hours in the history of the cinema" made romantic and elegant "The Letter from an Unknown Woman" in Hollywood and it is regarded as his best American movie.

'Letter from an Unknown Woman' is the first Max Ophüls I have seen. The film certainly gave me a lot of things to think about. In a nutshell, I thought the screenplay and plot written by Ophüls and Howard E. Koch which is based on the novella of the same name is good, but what makes the film special is Ophüls' direction and choice of camera movements and visual rhythm.

The screenplay is not something that completely blew me away. There are a lot of things that felt familiar due to my acquaintance with some other films belonging to the label of 'melodrama' made during the 40s, 50s and 60s. The film does give off the familiar vibe of inevitable tragedy right from the early scenes. The screenplay for the most part works, but there are moments which felt a bit weak. The strength of the film lies in the way Ophüls beautifully gives us the elaborate sequence of Lisa's ever growing infatuation for Stefan, it is believable and sweet, Ophüls doesn't shy away from the bitter eventualities of a doomed infatuation,etc. Ophüls also somewhat handles the potentially sexist element in the film well and gives the character of Lisa growth and strength as she gradually matures. Although initially her life seems to completely revolve around the man and she is shown to pretty much worship him, but later she gets to take a bold decision to uphold her self-respect which undercuts the lack of layers in her character in the initial part of the film. But there are certain elements in the screenplay that felt a bit weak, for example there is a scene where one character departs via a train with the promise that he/she will return after two weeks, we then suddenly jump to another scene with a jump in the timeline which felt rushed and not seamless. There is another railway station sequence which comes later in the film which does a callback to the previous railway station scene, but the scene ends with a bit of a foreshadowing of what's to come and it felt a bit too on the nose, and heavy handed.

For me the best part of the film is Ophüls' sophisticated use of the camera. He composes and choreographs a lot of scenes in a beautifully symmetrical fashion. Music plays an important role in the narrative as Stefan is a musician and it is his musical prowess that initially attracts Lisa to him even before she has seen him in person. I believe Ophüls' intention was using a symmetry that is found in classical musical pieces in the way he stages movement and composes frames by referencing,mirroring and juxtaposing earlier scenes. Apart from the aforementioned railway station scene, every other scene involving symmetrical touches work. Some examples of this visual symmetry is the sequence in Linz which starts with the dialogue being muted out by the noise of a horse drawn cart and ends with the dialogue being muted out again by the marching band playing the 'Radetzky March'. Another brilliant pair of symmetric scenes are the stair case scenes where the camera captures movement from the same position in both scenes but with completely different perspectives. Even the first and last shot of the film are beautifully symmetric and bookend the film very well. There is a famous scene in an amusement park where Stefan and Lisa have a conversation on a virtual train ride which pretty much succinctly summarises the theme of the film which is how love can be an illusion just like the illusion of visiting different cities and countries that they were enjoying with the ride.

Joan Fontaine is brilliant. In the initial part of the film, she plays the adorable girl next door. Although she plays a simple woman who pretty much thinks about nothing but catching the attention of Stefan, but she is so sweet, that one can't help but like her in spite of the thin nature of character at the beginning of the film. However thankfully she does go through a transformation and becomes this regal character belonging to high society who takes bold decisions and she goes through this transformation effortlessly. Although the character of Stefan is not the most likable character, but Louis Jourdan emotes a sense of disillusionment and dissatisfaction extremely well which makes us care a bit about him too so that Stefan doesn't just become the stereotypical handsome jerk.

'Letter from an Unknown Woman' by Max Ophüls is a very stylishly made film. Ophüls' style of camera movements and scene composition is very musical in its rhythm and symmetry. The storyline itself was something the likes of which I am familiar with, but it is Max Ophüls' directorial style that impressed me and I certainly intend to explore his filmography further.

Preposterously plotted but stylishly directed and impeccably acted, this is vintage Golden Age Hollywood melodrama. So much of the story-line is improbable, as the young Joan Fontaine's poor young French teenager develops a lifetime crush on the debonair but rakish concert pianist Louis Jourdain, a fascination that has tragic consequences for both. Like another classic film from around the same time "Portrait Of Jennie" the mistake is made in initially having the female lead attempt to carry herself off as a much younger version of herself, but once she matures into adult-hood, Fontaine is effective as the quietly enigmatic woman forever drawn to Jourdain's debonair charms.

I found it equally hard to believe that Jourdain's character could forget his previous encounters with Fontaine, especially the way that Max Ophuls directs the telling scenes, never mind that she eventually goes on to father his child. Such a plot could only end in death and tragedy and while I couldn't believe a word of it, still it was wonderfully entertaining along the way.

The costumes and sets are excellent and Jourdain and Fontaine are to be commended too for their fine performances, but doyens of film-making will particularly enjoy the skill with which director Ophuls employs his camera-work, so fluidly at times that the action appears to float in front of the viewer's eyes.

In a way, this film reminded me of grand opera, a wholly unbelievable story brought to life by the skill of its creator.

An admirable scene sums up the whole movie:Stefan and Liza are aboard a "train" and they "travel".It's actually a fixed train,and some kind of stagehand forwards a chocolate box scenery :Venice ,Switzerland... In the real world ,trains are ominous messengers of death and despair:it's a train which takes Stefan away after their affair,a train which takes the young boy to his death.

Stefan (Jourdan)lives his selfish life without seeing anything.Ophuls(spelled Opuls in the cast and credits) shows him as a handsome nice young man,but if you look with care,you'll notice it's always Liza(Fontaine)who's looking at him with love.Jourdan seems to care but actually he knows so many women that he acts as if he's in a play:Liza's admiration means nothing to him who is a ladykiller-see the scene when Liza comes back from the station- and a celebrated musician adulated by the crowds.Liza is the romantic woman,with a zest of touch of Madame Bovary thrown in -it's not a coincidence if Minnelli chose Jourdan as Madame Bovary's lover in his eponymous movie the very same year-For her,there must be only one love ,and she's prepared to give it all.

Joan Fontaine had perhaps never been so good as here.Her whole life ,as she writes her letter (the movie is a flashback ) could have been written in the past conditional.Main influence is certainly that of John Stahl and his "only yesterday" (1933)in which Margaret Sullavan wrote John Boles such a letter.Even the young boy is present in both movies.The last page of the letter,ink-stained (or tear-stained?)takes the audience to a peak of emotion.The final predates the ending of Ophuls's "Madame de" (1953),and the scene on the "train" ,an imitation of life ,the big circus of "Lola Montes" (1955)

This is probably Louis Jourdan's best part as well.A French actor,he was never that much popular in his native country ,and he found his best parts in the US ,be it artistically (Ophuls ,Hitchcock and Minnelli) or commercially (Octopussy) speaking.

Based on Austrian writer Stefan Zweig's novella 'Brief Einer Unbekannten', Ophuls uses all his creativity at disposal to enable his technicians to capture the cowardice of men and vulnerability of women. It is not only the leading pair who serves as a good example of cowards and vulnerable people. There are also some secondary characters who provide fitting description to words such as coward and vulnerable. The names of the woman's mother and her husband come to mind to provide a suitable description. In 'Letter from an unknown woman', Max Ophuls celebrates the immense power of a letter to convey feelings of disappointment arising out of a failed love affair. The letter in question is quite a long one. It was drafted by a woman to tell her doomed life to her lover. Ophuls depicts all the troubles which a woman is compelled to take in order to get love. It would not be wrong to state that love is out of fashion in current times. It has been replaced by something which resembles love but has a certain amount of physical force. There were times in the past when intense feelings of love were appreciated. 'Letter from an unknown woman" is one such film which has the ability to transport viewers to a time when love mattered a lot.