Max Ophuls's Adaptation to and Subversion of Classical Hollywood Cinema and Their Effect on his European Filmmaking
by Lutz Bacher

Max Ophuls is the only European director of his generation whose post-Hollywood films are now held in higher esteem than his earlier European work. Looking at the transition from America back to Europe in the conclusion of my book on his American career, I summarized the positive effect working in Hollywood had on him by approvingly quoting Douglas Sirk's remark to Jon Halliday: "He was steadily gaining in stature, I think, and developed fully only in America.... There is a different handwriting,... and I do think the American period, though not especially rewarding to him, helped him arrive at his most personal style."[1] Limiting myself to aspects of visual style, that is, omitting discussion of characteristic themes, narrative form, and aural style, I will attempt here to establish what those differences in handwriting are and then discover how his working in the Hollywood studios of the mid- to late forties contributed to the maturing of his style. My method will be to first briefly compare the stylistic traits of his pre- and post-war European films and then to use production history to determine his intervening American studio experience's effect on the evolution of his style in general and the influence of his adapting to and subverting the norms of the Classical Hollywood system in particular.

In order to make admittedly rather broad distinctions between the pre- and post-war films in terms of stylistic devices they characteristically employ, I will adopt two key camera and staging techniques listed in the "Criterion Stylistic Paradigm" of my book on Ophuls's American career, essentially a list of devices derived from visual analyses of his American films that Ophuls could be expected to use for creating a sense of fluidity or visual "flow" in his staging:

1. Axial and lateral actor movements, particularly when accompanied by the camera, are enhanced by complementary movement and balanced by counter movement.
2. Actor movement is related to camera movement in such a way that the camera pivots with the actor movement, that is, the camera base is traveling in one direction, while the camera itself pans or crane-arms with the actor in the opposite direction.[2]

In addition, I will refer to Barry Salt's measures of closeness of shot and the variation of shot scale between shots.[3] Finally, a distinction between types of mobile long takes I first made in my work on long-take camera movement in the seventies will prove useful, that between expressive and rhythmic long takes. Expressive long takes are shots during which the camera moves to vary angle, height, or distance more or less immediately for emphasis, variation of character dominance, or to connect or relate characters or objects to one another, thus essentially substituting camera movement for editing. Rhythmic long takes feature lengthy camera movements, predominantly in a lateral direction, without stops or significant immediate — they may be gradual — changes in camera angle or distance; they contribute to the meanings and moods of scenes primarily by the rhythms they create moving past fore- or background elements of the settings but also by the juxtaposition of moving subjects with setting elements. The amount of narrative content they carry varies but is often minimal. Expressive and rhythmic long takes may, of course, merge, one to the other, within a shot.

While their closeness of shot varies, Le Plaisir (1952) and Lola Montes (1955) having the most scenes in long or very long shot with no variation of shot scale between them, all of the late French films satisfy the criteria for fluidity outlined above. They feature lengthy segments in which a continuous flow of action, often in substantial part in rhythmic long takes, is sustained. La Ronde's (1950) opening sequence; in Le Plaisir, the first half of the "Le Masque" episode, Josephine's search for Jean in "Le Modele," and the first communion sequence of "La Maison Tellier;" the opening sequence of Madame de... (1953); and many shots in the the Lola Montes circus scenes are ready examples.

Beginning with Die Verkaufte Braut (1932), all pre-war films contain some scenes in which fluidity is sustained. La Signora di tutti (1934) stands out as sustaining it the longest, as in the dance scene, the film-premiere lobby scene, and the scene of Gaby's walk in the woods with Roberto. But, in general, such fluid scenes tend to be far shorter than those in the late films. All early films also fall notably short of consistently enhancing actor movements with complementary movements or balancing them with counter movements as well as in using camera movements in which the camera pivots. While there are rhythmic long takes, they are rarely combined with expressive long-take segments in the same shot. And expressive long takes are usually limited to predominantly in and out, that is, axial travelings, and connective pans or tilts. So, for instance, in La Signora di tutti, a sequence of expressive and rhythmic long takes, though beautifully conceived, nevertheless exemplifies those limitations. The sequence begins with an expressive long take, a straight axial traveling out from a close shot of Anna to a medium long shot of Anna, Gaby, and Alma by a lake. Following Gaby's exit toward the lake, an axial traveling in results in a medium shot of Anna and Alma. Then a series of rhythmic long takes, alternating between Leonardo driving along the lake and Gaby rowing along the shore, covers their dialogue. The sequence ends with another expressive long take, beginning with Alma in the sequence's opening setting and continuing with a pan to Leonardo's driving up, a reverse pan with his crossing in long shot toward Alma and Gaby, returning from the lake, and another axial traveling in for a final close shot framing of Leonardo and Gaby.[4] In this and other films of the thirties, there is also very little of the matching of shot scale between shots so characteristic of the late films. Increasingly in the later thirties, furthermore, scenes are staged in angle-reverse angle patterns that are ostensibly conventional but often break the rules of screen directional continuity. How, then, did Ophuls's working in American studios help him develop from this latter stage to his mature style?

One might argue that Ophuls had a proclivity for camera movement that, like his thematic propensities, remained constant throughout his career and that he was kept from continually using camera movement in increasingly sophisticated ways only by adverse circumstances. Screenwriter Hans Wilhelm told me that Ophuls confided to him during the production of Liebelei (1933) that he moved the camera because he had difficulties mastering the rules of continuity.[5] Marcel Ophuls has ascribed those difficulties with screen direction to dyslexia (rarely has coping with dysfunction resulted in so much pleasure and beauty).[6] And Ophuls himself has noted his aversion to static scenes, perfectly framed.[7] But the existence of this proclivity does not diminish the significance of his American experience in effecting the development of his mature style.

If budget constraints and having to follow the dominant style of the late thirties for commercial reasons had kept Ophuls from following his inclinations to the fullest, then perhaps also, as Barry Salt suggests, the artistic and, to varying extent, commercial success of American directors who pursued long-take and/or camera-movement styles in the early and mid-forties (Welles, Minnelli, Preminger) encouraged Ophuls to do likewise, to return to the tendencies most evident in La Signora di tutti.[8] Certainly, his intention to employ mobile long takes, both rhythmic and expressive, extensively is already evident in the shooting script for Vendetta, which he worked on with two other writers late in 1944 and completed early in 1945.

Ophuls's participation in the production preparations for Vendetta at Goldwyn Studios and even more so the extended and elaborate pre-production for The Exile (1947) as Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.'s associate at Universal introduced him to the ways American studio production was structured. Before shooting of The Exile began, he wrote to his son that he was "enthusiastic about the technical possibilities of a real Hollywood studio," adding that he was "glad now to still have the opportunity after all to learn so much more about my profession."[9] He did learn and adapt — from strained relations with the crew at the start of the 62-day schedule to mutual admiration at the end; from little experience with camera cranes to mastery; and, perhaps most importantly for its effect on the rest of his Hollywood career, from having difficulties with staying on schedule and budget to meeting or exceeding these performance criteria and thus gaining credibility and funding for staging he wanted most.

Achieving production efficiencies was an adaptive strategy Ophuls kept refining to the point of being able to manipulate and subvert the system. For instance, early in production of The Exile, he began elaborating the Countess's Arrival sequence to create a continuous flow of action in a series of some fifteen mobile long takes lasting until the Countess's discovery of Charles II among the servants. But falling behind schedule and using too much film because of his inexperience brought about the studio's intervention after only nine long takes had been shot. The studio hierarchy forced him to scale back his vision, to retreat to conventional cutaway and point-of-view shot-reverse shot patterns in order to get back on schedule. But soon after that setback, he managed to come up with staging economies for the fight scenes at Katie's Inn that resulted in the production getting ahead of schedule. The consequent savings earned him the wherewithal to both elaborate the large-scale Roundhead Pursuit scenes at the inn and keep the expensive 360-degree pan of the landscape surrounding Katie's Inn.

It is in such give-and-take that important stylistic changes occurred. His ability to integrate reverse-angle patterns into camera movement staging improved. So, for instance, he maneuvered Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., into a reverse-angle position at the end of an Inn Fight scene long take, then continued using that ending in a subsequent reverse-angle pattern. More importantly, he learned to use the two cranes he had at his disposal for complex expressive long takes that substituted for conventional decoupage and did so more economically.

For understanding this development, considering the capacities of the camera movement equipment is essential. Besides their original raison d'être, dealing with extensive vertical movement, such as staircase ascents, cranes have the inherent capacity for following lateral movement by rotating the crane arm sideways and/or moving the crane chassis and allowing the arm or the camera on its base at the end of the arm to pan in the opposite direction. Consequently, a complex pivoting of the camera in relation to the subject, whether moving or static, occurs, in which it is often difficult to pinpoint the direction of motion of the various components — the arm movement, the camera's panning, and the movement of the crane chassis on tracks. Thus it is possible to readily effect shifts in camera-subject distance, camera height, and angle in expressive movement, create the continuous flow of rhythmic movement, or quickly change from one mode to the other.

Ophuls directs the scene in The Exile of Charles and Pinner entering Katie's Inn from the operator's seat of the No. 2 crane. (Photo by Maurice Goldberg, courtesy AMPAS)

The large Universal No. 2 crane, built in 1937, second to the studio's first crane of the late twenties, the even larger electric Broadway-crane, was typically used where its height was essential, the Pinner and Duchess Arrival scenes, for instance, with their ascents to the second story of the inn. When there was enough open studio space in front of the subject, it could also be used for lateral and axial blocking such as in the 3½-minute expressive long take of Charles's speech to the assembled Cavaliers and the rhythmic long take in the Opera Foyer scene in Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948). Lester Kahn, the No. 2's chief operator, had been working with it since 1937 on films by John Stahl and Fritz Lang, among others. Kahn's collaborator in the No. 2's operation, Arvid Woodin, had recently designed and built the much smaller Woodin crane with a maximum lens height of almost three meters. With a chassis little larger than a dolly's, it could travel on tracks or with pneumatic tires on smooth floors. Its arm, similar to what is now called a jib, could rotate 360 degrees. Furthermore, the angle of the camera platform to the arm could be adjusted. Similar in all capabilities to the No. 2, the Woodin offered easy maneuverability in small settings and afforded virtually limitless motion within its range. Though it was originally budgeted for only four days early in The Exile's production schedule, Ophuls insisted on using it for the entire productions of The Exile and Letter from an Unknown Woman. For both films it was his most commonly used camera support, with Kahn operating its arm and Woodin steering and pushing its chassis with two assistants. Ophuls often participated in the technical setup and learned to take full advantage of its capabilities, achieving for the first time a degree of fluidity anticipating that of his later French work. Without the Woodin crane and its skilled operators, it is difficult to imagine Ophuls's development along the lines I described above occurring as quickly and effectively. It's likely, too, that his wife's remark about his being "so overwhelmed by the technical possibilities of a Hollywood sound stage that it could almost have become dangerous for him," referred at least in part to his interest in Universal's cranes.[10]

On the operator's seat of the Woodin crane, Ophuls participates in the technical rehearsal of The Exile's Bathtub scene with cinematographer Franz Planer (on assistant cameraman's seat) and crane operators Arvid Woodin (center) and Lester Kahn (at right, back to camera). (Photo by Maurice Goldberg, courtesy AMPAS)

With Planer on the Woodin crane's operator's seat, Ophuls directs Letter From an Unknown Woman's Opera scene from the assistant cameraman's seat. The crane arm is raised to its greatest height here. (Photo by Bert Anderson, courtesy AMPAS)

At Universal, Ophuls's ability to achieve economies by using expressive long takes was welcomed, albeit reluctantly. Shooting in this manner can be seen as an adaptation to the Classical Hollywood cinema, within which the expressive long take had far more acceptance than the rhythmic long take, but one can also consider his merging of expressive long takes with rhythmic long takes as ultimately subversive of Classical Hollywood conventions because, in David Bordwell's terms, he thus made the long take "a major structural factor" that would result in making a "film of large durational chunks, of segments impossible to frame within an orthodox decoupage."[11] His editor, Ted Kent, and some studio executives resented them, seeing them as usurping their prerogatives in post-production. "A lot of the time long takes are made so that they play the way they were directed and nobody in the front office, the editor, or anybody else can tamper with them," said studio production manager James Pratt, "and sometimes it was an open act of defiance."[12] Supervising editor Ernest Nims felt Ophuls was "actually trying to cut the film on the set by shooting these long shots; he was protecting himself."[13] In reaction, they did not hesitate to use extraordinary means to defeat his intentions, cutting large sections of long-take continuity in The Exile, eliminating the rhythmic long takes of transitional action in both films, and, especially for Letter From an Unknown Woman, interrupting long takes with added close-ups of its stars.

For the production of Caught (1949), on the other hand, Ophuls's capacity for speeding up production by linking multiple setups in expressive long takes and thus effecting economies at a time when Enterprise Studios desperately sought them, was welcomed enthusiastically. His ability to do so was boosted by the fortuitous arrival of a brand-new tool for camera mobility, the crab dolly. Operated by Morris Rosen, one of its designers, who first used it in Alfred Hitchcock's The Paradine Case (1947) and then again in that extraordinary exercise in the expressive long take, Rope (1948), the crab dolly could effect smooth immediate shifts in direction, including axial to lateral, by virtue of all of its wheels turning simultaneously. This maneuverability was made possible by production on the smooth floors of the studio's new stages. This compensated to a large extent for the absence of a crane on all but a few days. Though the crab dolly lends itself more readily to the precise articulation of expressive camera movements, Ophuls learned to use it in a fluid manner, taking advantage of its ability to pivot, the wheels curving in one direction, the camera on its pedestal panning in another, thus substituting for the jib arm's motion. Recall the beginning of Leonora's early morning confrontation with Smith for an example: as she stands in the foreground in long shot, her back towards us, the camera travels left to right, while panning in the opposite direction with Smith's leftward crossing from extreme long shot to medium long shot. While her position in the frame remains the same, the camera appears to float as it pivots around her. The presence of Robert Parrish, a young editor who supported him, favored Ophuls's practices. As a consequence, there are many scenes that integrate staging and editing devices, requiring Ophuls to stage action in certain ways in order to accommodate editing concepts, and, consequently, far fewer angle-reverse angle scenes.

With Caught, there was virtually none of the kind of post-production chicanery that plagued the Universal films. Ophuls felt, nevertheless, that working quickly had made the essential difference in getting what he wanted. He wrote to the producer John Houseman: "This Hollywood crisis could be good for you.... this desperate cry for cheap production would make it possible for you to fool them, and before they realize it make good pictures. In the picture I just finished, I found out that that is possible."[14]

That means of subversion also informed Ophuls's conduct during the production of The Reckless Moment (1949) at Columbia Studios, though there it met with greater obstacles. Here he had to go as far as adding detailed breakdowns for shot-reverse shot, insert, and cutaway coverage to many scenes, "a bluff," said screenwriter Robert Soderberg, "to get him the OK on the shooting script."[15] In the scene of Lucia's first meeting with Donnelly, for instance, he combined the scripted scene's 15 shots into a single 88-second expressive long take on the set. Budget pressures on producer Walter Wanger's semi-independent production even extended to limiting the use of the large Columbia Studio Crane. And while the so-called Columbia Baby crane resembled the Woodin, it was track-bound on rough studio floors or on locations. Except for the faster pace of many travelings and location shooting, The Reckless Moment added little that was new to Ophuls's camera-movement experience.

From a sound boom parallel in front of the large Columbia crane, Ophuls rehearses the intense dialogue scene following Donnelly's fatal fight with Nagle. The scene ends with the crane's booming up with Lucia's descent from the veranda. (Photo by Joe Walters. Courtesy Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc.)

Ophuls's remarks on his stylistic preferences near the end of his American period suggest the course of action he would take once he was less fettered by Classical Hollywood constraints on style. In a story for The Independent Film Journal, reporter Milton Luban noted Ophuls's insistence on camera mobility and dislike of close-ups: "first, he keeps a moving camera and fights with producers to spend more money for the best and most efficient camera cranes. 'Moving pictures should move,' he said. Then there's the matter of close-ups, which, in the main, he abhors.... 'If I had my way, close-ups would be used only to heighten dramatic effect; to establish an important story point. It's almost gotten to the point where you use a long shot to establish what a close-up should do.'"[16] Similarly, Columbia's pressbook article on Ophuls as a "movie stylist" quotes him on camera movement: "moods and changes of pace can only be highlighted by corresponding camera action — a nervous, quickly moving camera for excitement, a slow methodical camera for building tough story points" and on his abhorrence for close-ups, "they have been so misused that they no longer mean anything."[17]

The quantity of camera movements in La Ronde, especially rhythmic camera movement, is evidence of Ophuls's liberation from Hollywood constraints.[18] In a letter to producer Walter Wanger, he quipped, "imagine we stopped shooting two days ago and when I was on the abandoned set today, the lonely camera without any human help on his side was still running around. It can't stand still anymore."[19] The skilful combinations of expressive and rhythmic long-take segments in single shots in La Ronde are remarkable. So, for instance, near the beginning of "The Young Man and the Married Woman" episode, he staged Alfred's going to meet Emma at the door and their entrance into the apartment with rhythmic long fluidity, then continued with a long static segment and an expressive long take traveling in to a close shot for their dialogue. Much as he had in Hollywood until just eight months earlier, Ophuls used the expressive long take for effecting production economies. Afterwards, he told Sight & Sound's Francis Koval, "I have a vague idea that I should turn to good use the proverbial American efficiency by making a few pictures over here which would reflect European spirit and sensibility."[20] In his subsequent films, similar staging strategies are evident, though his avoidance of close shots becomes even more pronounced and he uses ever more rhythmic long takes. But the appearance of a nearly continuous flow in many sequences of these late French films is also a consequence of his merging rhythmic with expressive long takes, the careful use of complementary and counter movements, the floating camera quality contributed by pivoting, the matching of shot scale in successive shots, and, as a result of his adaptation to Classical Hollywood cinema, a smoother, even fluid, occasional use of angle-reverse angle staging, though he reverted to breaking continuity rules at times. As Douglas Sirk perceived correctly, all of these stylistic traits had already been evident in his American films, the result, as I have documented above, of Ophuls's taking advantage of and adapting to Hollywood production conditions.[21]

Originally published in Luciano De Giusti, Luca Giuliani (editors), Il piacere e il disincanto nel cinema di Max Ophuls (Milan: Il Castoro, 2003). Proceedings of Lo sguardo dei maestri, La Cineteca del Friuli, Cec - Udine, Cinemazero - Pordenone, February 2002.

Lutz Bacher
© FIPRESCI 2006

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