Lola Montès (Max Ophüls, 1955) (Patreon)

Although I am well aware of the canonical status of Lola Montès, I can't help feeling a certain ambivalence toward it. For one thing, there is the brute fact of history. This was simultaneously Ophüls' final film and his first film in color. It's hard not to think that, had Ophüls lived to make other films, Lola Montès might have been seen as a transitional work. That's not to say that it is a mediocre picture. That's certainly not the case. 

But having taken in so many of Ophüls' films in such a brief period, I've come to think that he had absolutely perfected a particular way of rendering light and space, a method that assumes, if not demands, the unique character of black and white. He had mastered the use of layered mise en scène, the tendency to interrupt the depth of the image with a translucent or latticed barrier that flattens the scene happening behind it. When Ophüls replicates this approach in Lola Montès, which he does quite often, there's a nagging sense that color -- particularly the saturated, high-key hues he tends toward in this film -- is more of a complication than an enrichment. Had Ophüls produced another film or two, I have no doubt he'd have figured out how to more fully articulate color into his formal palette. But too often, Lola Montès seems "colorized," as though this new aesthetic parameter is sort of floating atop Ophüls' typical methods, without the artist having fully woven it into his system.

I have no doubt that this is a minority opinion. But as much as I appreciated Lola Montès, I kept thinking about its obvious influence on Fassbinder, and how the later filmmaker would dramatically improve on the earlier man's achievement. Fassbinder understood color theory, if only intuitively. He grasped how a bright color, when set against a generally drab background, could radically alter our perception of space. He frequently applied this tool in tandem not only with stark framings but with camera movements and especially zooms, designed to augment the cognitive impact that color could so often have.

I suppose this is really just my way of saying that Lola Montès strikes me as a less confident Sirk film. But then again, this may also have to do with the story that's driving the film, and the somewhat awkward manner in which it's delivered. By beginning with Lola (Martine Carol) and the end of her relationship with Franz Liszt (Will Quadflieg), and then taking us back into the frame-story of Lola's indentured servitude to Peter Ustinov and the circus, Ophüls generates a kind of temporal accordion pattern, in which we move back and forth from flashback to present-day, with the intervals increasing in length.

This sort of has the effect of dissolving the clarity of the time structure, where it becomes harder to really perceive the difference between past and present as we watch. This is theoretically a shrewd maneuver, since it could confuse our perception of, and our sympathies with, Lola. But as Ophüls employs it, this temporal manipulation is more confusing than challenging. Part of the impact of this muddled organization is that we can never really get a bead on how to perceive Lola, both as a subject in and of herself, and in relation to history and the sexist limitations placed on women.

What Lola Montès intends is fairly legible. She is a once proud woman now brought low, spending her final days as a scandalous prop, punished for her transgressions by having to appear as a simulacrum of herself, if not an outright parody. But there is a lack of emphasis placed on the choices Lola makes throughout her past life. On the one hand, the irony of her early years is made painfully evident. Ustinov tells of the good home life Lola left behind, and then we see her mother (Lise Delamare) shunt her off so she can hook up with a soldier. But eventually, Lola takes charge, flouting convention and even helping precipitate the fall of Ludwig I (Anton Walbrook). Where is the shift? At what point does Lola evolve from victim, to iconoclast, and then back to victim again? 

To really make narrative and emotional sense, Lola Montès probably needed to be a full hour longer. But then, it was a flop at the time, and I doubt even a titan like Ophüls could have gotten away with an epic-length feminist melodrama. In this regard, it's no wonder Fassbinder thought the tale merited a do-over.