Max Ophuls, May 6, 1902 – March 26, 1957.

The Lovers of Montparnasse, Jacques Becker, Max Ophüls

Lola Montès (Max Ophuls, 1955)

The Reckless Moment (1949)

The Reckless Moment (1949) / May December (2023)

There’s No Tomorrow ~ Sans lendemain (Max Ophüls, 1939)

The Earrings of Madame de… (1953) dir. Max Ophuls

"This is the point: the complete non-sense of this woman's life, accentuated by her elegance and her footmen. What use is she? And not only her, but all the people of her kind, the whole society. It's not a life, it's an existence. Even less: an inexistence. This film must be indirectly very bitter, and a thousand times deeper than the anecdote on which it is based. And your task, dear Danielle, will be hard. You, armed with your charm, with your beauty and your intelligence that we all admire, will have to personify the emptiness, the inexistence. Not to fill the emptiness but personify it. On the screen you will become the actual symbol of a fleeting futility that is quite without interest. And you must do it in such a way that the spectators are caught up in, seduced and deeply moved by the image you will represent. Without this paradox, we will end up with a second-rate melodrama, and that is not what we do." — Max Ophüls instructing Danielle Darrieux during the filming of Madame de… (1953)