Film

Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948)

Director: Max Ophüls

Movie review

From Time Out New York

A wise man once proclaimed that love means never having to say you’re sorry. Had this sage ever seen Max Ophüls’s work, he would have recanted that nugget of bumper-sticker wisdom immediately. A filmmaker whose entire oeuvre treated l’amour as one bitter, looped apology, Ophüls made romantic movies for closet cynics. Viewers can become so enthralled with his rich, cluttered compositions and graceful tracking shots that they almost miss the hearts that inevitably shatter before their eyes. BAM is devoting three weeks of programming to the German-born director’s thrillers and tearjerkers; that’s assuming, naturally, that folks can regain their composure enough to return after seeing his 1948 melodrama, which has been known to turn grown men into human puddles.

The crowning achievement of Ophüls’s tenure in America, Letter from an Unknown Woman is as close to perfection as Hollywood weepies have ever come; in terms of the filmmaker’s own personal best, it’s only a hair’s breadth behind The Earrings of Madame de… (1953). Were it not for him, this love triangle between an obsessed young woman (Fontaine), a callow musician (Jourdan) and the cruel hand of fate might have been just another elegant period piece shuffled off the Dream Factory’s assembly line. But Ophüls understands irony enough to show how temporarily requited passion makes everything seem magical, yet true happiness is as illusory as an amusement park coach ride. You never forget that you’re in the hands of a master: Every moment is measured, every step is counted and every heartstring is plucked with the utmost care.