Lola Montès (1955): Is It Really "the Greatest Film of All Time?"

by Tony Dayoub

Before I discuss Lola Montès, allow me to digress. An oft-discussed topic among cinephiliacs (where did I see it this week, Wonders in the Dark?) is the difference—if there is one—between a film labeled "best" or "favorite." As in, "Citizen Kane is the best film of all time," or, "My all-time favorite film is There Will Be Blood." I am of the opinion that "best" and "favorite" are two different animals. A movie which I label "best" is a film displaying artistic, intellectual, and technical virtuosity, yet it might not engage me on an emotional level. The White Ribbon (2009) is a great example of a film which I am happy to list as one of the best of this decade, but it leaves me cold... as it is meant to. It certainly isn't a "favorite" which I would choose to see over and over again. No, a "favorite" is a movie which I enjoy watching, sometimes even obsessively, despite any flaws in its execution. For example, David Lynch's visually stylish Lost Highway (1997) is a film which is certainly not one of his best, tends to be almost parodic in its excesses, yet appeals to me for the way it hearken's back to another noir I love, Kiss Me Deadly. Get it?

Well, as it so happens, the two films which are constantly vying for the number one spot on my own personal list of such things happen to be films I consider both "best" and "favorite," Bertolucci's Il Conformista (The Conformist) (1970) and Coppola's The Godfather Part II (1974). They each have a complex nonlinear narrative structure, make thematic associations through montage—a visual device unique to the moving picture—are impeccably cast, perfectly written with dialogue that is not only colloquial to the characters but resonant within the subtextual framework... the list of their outstanding qualities goes on. They are also movies which I engage with so greatly that even after multiple viewings, I like spending time in their respective worlds. Food for the mind AND for the soul, these movies are.

Watching the upcoming Criterion release of Max Ophuls final film, Lola Montès, at first glance a film which doesn't resemble either of my two favorites, is what got me to thinking about how I classify movies. A subscriber to auteurism like myself couldn't ignore its godfather, film critic Andrew Sarris and his one-time declaration, "Lola Montès is, in my unhumble opinion, the greatest film of all time.” Wow. He really sidestepped the whole "best" vs. "favorite" argument by using the all-encompassing "greatest." Why hadn't I seen this movie yet? The reasons are many as to how this gorgeous film got lost over the years, and easy to find if you search the internet. But as for me personally, fate got in the way of my being able to see it in 2008, the first year I was invited to cover the New York Film Festival where this restored version had its premiere.

Lola Montès explores the historical figure—an Englishwoman (Martine Carol) who adopted the titular stage name gaining some fame for her dancing and even greater fame for her numerous affairs with such luminaries as composer Franz Liszt (Will Quadflieg) and King Ludwig I of Bavaria (Anton Walbrook, looking like an old world Victor Garber)—through an unusual framing device. Peter Ustinov assays the role of the Ringmaster at a travelling circus in which Lola performs in a living reenactment of her life story. Each time an anecdote is related to the rapt audience, the viewer is drawn into a flashback by the film's own meta-ringmaster, Ophuls.

On a purely visual level the film, Ophuls' first in color and Cinemascope, is spectacular to behold. Every frame is lushly appointed with color, and a gilded luxury densely and kaleidoscopically layered onto the image. Not one shot is free of any refractive, prismatic, or reflective effect. Actors are frequently blocked by columns, architectural grating, stained glass, or gauzy color curtains throughout, all effects which separate us from the events of Lola's life unfolding before us while paradoxically creating the intimacy of being in the same room as her, voyeuristically peering into her most private moments like some celebrity stalker. Adding to this peculiar contradiction is Ophuls' refusal to ever shoot any closeups within the flashbacks, a decision which realistically approximates our own natural vision's propensity to focus on medium to wide tableaux, again keeping us at an unusual distance cinematically while still preserving the you-are-there perception.

The viewer's perspective shifts almost imperceptibly throughout the circus setting, the film's present as it were, from one of spectator when Ophuls' constantly moving camera tracks Lola from her audience's point of view to one of omniscient voyeur when the camera follows her backstage, where every cinematographic obstruction hints at the loneliness and confinement the character endures in her self-imposed isolation. Say what you will about Martine Carol's limited range, it is perfectly harnessed by Ophuls to convey the character of a chameleon, one who has voided her personality to become all things to all men, a sexual object defined by whatever male is at her side, but strangely devoid of emotion in all but two key moments in the film. Carol's vacant expression and Ophuls' visual imprisonment of Lola fuse in the film's last tracking shot to form one of the most disturbing final shots I can remember from a movie of that period, over which he brings down a theatrical curtain, the final implicit statement that the viewer is tied to Lola's objectification as greatly as her filmic male admirers are.

All of this analysis should betray the fact that though Lola Montès stimulated me on an intellectual level, on an emotional level it failed to connect, although I'm not sure that wasn't Ophuls' intention. With all due respect to Mr. Sarris, Lola Montès has made it onto my all-time top 10. However, it has not yet supplanted either The Conformist or The Godfather Part II as a favorite. True, Lola Montès ends up having more in common with each of the aforementioned films than one would think. Each of the film's respective protagonists end up in a form of self-imposed exile. Each of the films share a novelistic, non-linear approach to storytelling. Each of the films are sprawling in their use of the external (worldwide physical locations) to focus narrowly on the internal (the motives of one individual).

But Lola Montès' technical virtuosity far surpasses that of the other two films. Where The Conformist and The Godfather Part II are dependent on montage to develop their theses, Lola Montès trusts its audience to make its way through its mise en scéne to get its subtext across. So I'm not entirely certain that with subsequent viewings I won't become more comfortable with its spectacle on a visceral level. Its unpredictable ending makes one want to rethink the whole movie. Given time, Lola Montès might just inch her way up to the very top of my own list of favorites.

Lola Montès is available on Criterion Blu-ray and DVD, Tuesday, February 16th.

Blu-ray Review: Quo Vadis (1951)

America's mid-20th century love affair with the Biblical epic began with Mervyn LeRoy's Quo Vadis (1951). And a new Blu-ray by Warner Home Video goes a long way to proving why that's the case. The saturated colors and epic setpieces that dominate the film's mise-en-scène are reason enough to sit back and enjoy the spectacle. But Peter Ustinov's scenery-chewing performance as the last Roman Caesar, Nero, is another great justification. This film was the template for future movies of its ilk, and should be seen for that if for no other reason. Like The Robe (1953), or Ben-Hur (1959), Quo Vadis is based on a historical novel that examines the nascent religion of Christianity through the eyes of an outsider. Here it is loyal Roman commander Marcus Vinicius (Robert Taylor), who falls in love with a Christian slave, the beautiful Lygia (Deborah Kerr), while struggling to remain loyal to the increasingly mad Emperor Nero. Lygia's entreaties for Vinicius to join her in following Christ's teachings are initially dismissed. But as the Roman civilization's descent into populist vulgarity begins to mirror Nero's own mental decline Vinicius starts to see the truth of Lygia's beliefs. Like in later epics, Christ is depicted from behind or as someone partially offscreen. Notable historical figures make extended cameos, mixing with the fictional characters. These include Petronious (Leo Genn), and the prophets Peter (Finlay Currie) and Paul (Abraham Sofaer), in addition to Nero. Ustinov steals the movie with his performance as the petulant last Emperor of Rome. At once haughty and crass, Nero is obsessed with adding to his already well established grandiosity. Frequently, he does this by diminishing others, be it in his ill treatment of his courtiers or in the execution of both his mother and wife (before the events depicted in the film). But as the fledgling Christian religion begins to gain his notice, he saves his greatest ire for them. He devises evil ways of executing them, feeding them to the lions and later setting them aflame on wooden stakes in two memorable scenes in the movie. Ustinov portrays the mercurial Nero in even his most heinous acts as both mannerly and mannered, an effective contrast that serves as a metaphor for the excesses of Rome. Co-cinematographer Robert Surtees, who would later win an Oscar for Ben-Hur, captures the at times orgiastic spectacle of Rome in wonderfully brilliant colors that the above photograph doesn't do justice. This is where the Blu-ray holds its greatest power. It reveals the rainbow of colors that so often fails to be depicted in films about the Roman Empire. One has grown accustomed to the white togas of the Roman Senate so often seen in such films. But as more recent exercises like Caligula (1979) and HBO's Rome (2005-07) have demonstrated, Ancient Rome was hardly sedate when it came to fashion or architecture. And Surtees manages to display all of the glamor and grandeur without the benefit of the widescreen splendor of CinemaScope, which wouldn't make its first appearance until The Robe debuted two years later. Quo Vadis has its flaws, primarily in the casting of lead Robert Taylor. His somewhat anachronistic take on Vinicius seems more appropriate to a low-budget war movie than the world of the ancient Romans. And it's a little more difficult to ignore the star than supporting actor Edward G. Robinson's similar performance as Dathan in DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956). But Ustinov as Nero more than makes up for it, providing one of the film's strongest moments as he plucks his lyre while Rome burns. Audiences would flock to see the Bibical epic for the opportunity to see often apocryphal historic events play out onscreen. This trend began with Quo Vadis. Still courtesy of Warner Home Video.