The Earrings of Madame de…
Categories: Featured, Movie Reviews
Written By: Eric Jensen
Rating: 
I’m a complex man when it come to movies, I am. On the one hand, I hate people and the terrible movies they like to see. Every person who wants to see Pandorum is a person I want to punch in the face. Who would see G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra when they could watch Bicycle Thieves instead?
On the other hand, I totally love Rock-a-Doodle.
So you never know what you’re gonna get with me. You can’t guess in advance whether I’m gonna talk about how great some musty old movie you young kids have never heard of is, or if I’m gonna sing the praises of some movie you know is manifestly terrible, like The Master of Disguise. Either way, you’re sure not to care.
So in that case, the movie you don’t care about today is The Earrings of Madame de…,a 1953 film that, you will no doubt be surprised to learn, is not even in English. I realize I’m fighting an uphill battle, here. It’s hard enough to get young people to watch a movie that is both old and in black and white; add in a bunch of French-talkin’ foreigners and subtitles the viewer will have to actually read, if you can imagine, and you can just forget about it. You’ll have about as much success recommending Proust to an Irish setter.
Can I finally get around to reviewing the movie without devoting any more words to how everyone on the planet is stupider than me? Let’s find out.
The first thing to notice about the picture is its style. Particularly in today’s atmosphere of shaking cameras and cuts every two seconds, you can’t help but be dazzled by the masterful tracking shots director Max Ophuls uses throughout Madame de…. It’s not just one particular shot that sticks in the mind, either; it’s like a whole movie of opening shots from Touch of Evil.
And the movement of the camera isn’t the only place where we might invoke Welles in discussing Madame de…. The black and white cinematography is in a class by itself, creating a look and a feel and a richness that, arguably, is second only to Gregg Toland’s work in Citizen Kane. Much was gained when color film became the standard for moviemaking, but not without cost. Black and white photography bestows on movies an elegance and a certain ineffable quality that, whatever it is, is surely the very essence of cinema.
The Earrings of Madame de… offers no shortage of things to look at, in addition to its gorgeous way of looking at them. Was fin de siecle Paris really this lush and opulent, really such a delicacy for the eyes? I don’t truly know, but it’s always that way in the movies, and perhaps nowhere moreso than here, the frame full of stunning gowns and ballroom dancing and distinguished gentlemen cutting dashing figures. You can’t pull your eyes away for a moment.
Fortunately, Madame de… manages to avoid being all style and no substance. We care about the characters and their relationships, not just the world in which their lives take place.
Those characters are Madame de… (the phenomenal Danielle Darrieux), her husband, the General (Charles Boyer), and her lover, the Baron Donati (Vittorio De Sica—see, it’s not for nothing that I mentioned Bicycle Thieves). And, of course, there are the earrings.
The valuable diamond earrings were a wedding present from the General to his wife, but she cares little for him and even less for the jewelry. She hocks the earrings and never regrets it as she goes about the rest of her life, which includes falling in love with Baron Donati.
Madame de… and the Baron fall in love in a series of wonderful ballroom dancing scenes, growing closer and closer with each new dance. It’s in this sequence that the tracking shots are perhaps most impressive, following the lovers as they move across the floor, never losing them as they talk to one another. Combining storytelling and presentation, this is what the movies are all about.
Eventually, through a series of just-this-side-of-believable coincidences, the Baron gives Madame de… a gift as a token of his love: the very same diamond earrings. What the lady had before cast aside as worthless now is precious to her, because it comes from the man she loves.
Of course, she’s still got a husband and he isn’t exactly thrilled about the whole situation, but you know how that goes. It wouldn’t be much of a picture without conflict, would it?
This is the kind of movie phrases like “they don’t make ‘em like that anymore” were invented for. Of course, they do make ‘em like this, sometimes, but you’d better believe they don’t come to multiplexes. There’s no money to be made in a movie without dick jokes and fighting robots, apparently because Hollywood assumes intelligent people have no interest in going to the movies. (Ah, it turns out I couldn’t review the movie without talking about how much stupider everyone is than me. Alas.) I’d like to hope that the moviegoing public, as a whole, can prove them wrong. Embrace the intelligent, thoughtful movies of the past, guys! Show the big-budget filmmakers you’re tired of having your intellect insulted. Show ‘em what you’re made of!
Or go rent X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I know that’s what you’re going to do anyway.
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