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Lola Montès
Ostensibly a biography told in flashbacks of Elizabeth Rosanna Gilbert—better known as Lola Montès: dancer, courtesan, mistress of composers and kings—Max Ophüls’s final masterpiece is really a meditation on time and the evanescent nature of fame and riches.
As the director’s majestic moving camera glides alongside Lola through scenes of the greatest opulence and splendor, we become keenly aware that it will all crumble and vanish one day, that life is indeed nothing but a dream.
Martine Carol is the ostensible star, and Peter Ustinov, Anton Walbrook, and a young Oskar Werner are the men in her life, but the real star is Ophüls himself. He gave everything to this movie, and its subsequent financial failure and butchering at the hands of its producers were among the factors that contributed to his untimely death at the age of 54.
The many attempts to restore Lola Montès over the years have proven to be difficult given the fact that the film was shot in the relatively unstable Eastmancolor process. This gleaming new restoration from the Cinémathèque Française, which incorporates all available footage, is truly a major cinematic event. —New York Film Festival.
“One of the essential films ... Beautiful and heartbreaking.” —David Thomson
“A masterpiece! Gorgeously stylized and magnificently mysterious!” —New York Magazine
“A sumptuous restoration! A colossal spectacle about colossal spectacles!” —Richard Brody, The New Yorker
“A revelatory new print! Requires the big screen to bloom—and bloom it does, into something extraordinary.” —Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out New York
“Sheer ecstasy... I recommend Lola Montès wholeheartedly for its sensuous delights and its ever exquisite artistry!”—Andrew Sarris
Cast & Crew
Director: Max Ophüls
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