Lola Montès (1955)

The film tells the tragic story of Lola Montès, a great adventurer who becomes the main attraction of a circus after being the lover of various important European men.This would be the last film directed by Ophüls before his death of a heart attack in March 1957. As originally shown in France in 1955, the audience sees the events of Lola Montès' life through the use of flashbacks. Use of the technique was criticized upon its release and the movie did poorly at the box office. In response, the producers re-cut the film and shortened it in favor of a more chronological storyline, against the director's wishes.I cannot imagine this film in chronological order. What does that mean -- putting the circus at the end? What a terrible idea. Thank you, Criterion, for fixing this mess... it is so much better seeing her as the center of fascination and then having her life -- the source of the fascination -- revealed.

The framing conceit is Peter Ustinov as a circus ringmaster, putting Lola Montes on display, and charging money for each question asked of her, mostly concerning her affairs with famous men. In that register of celebrity, she rivals Alma Maria Schindler. As each question is asked -- "What was her youth like?" and so forth -- we get to watch a flashback and see her development into what Ustinov keeps calling a femme fatale.It's in wide screen, the musical score is majestic, and the movie is splashed with colors varying in their degree of luridness. I kind of liked the decor. All that crimson Victorian-era flock or whatever it's called. A few more plastic ferns and beaded curtains and it would look like a 1910 Egyptian whorehouse or like my apartment, both settings being so similar.Granted that a lot of imagination has gone into the production, as well as a lot of talent and money. I believe Picasso had imagination and talent too, but look what he produced. One magnificent panel of the bombing of a Spanish town, and the rest are stone-faced clowns or models with three breasts.There has to be a point to the whole thing, and it must somehow involve the viewer. I don't think there was a moment I cared about what happened to Lola Montes. Her character is more marionette than seductress. And the dialog doesn't help. Franz Liszt: "It is better that we part this way." Lola: "Some day we will meet again, you at your concert and me on my stage." Liszt: "It will have to be a coincidence." Lola: "All of life is a coincidence." That's deeply profound.I'm not bashing the movie because I didn't make it to the end, and evidently it has a lot of popular appeal, but I can't help wondering -- if it had been directed by someone named, say, Bruce Ophuls instead of Max, would it have had the same appeal?

It is a great shame that Max Ophuls only made one colour wide-screen movie - this one. The master of the tracking shot might have done so much more but this was his last completed movie.The scenes are mostly well-directed and beautifully photographed but the main problem with "Lola Montès" is Lola. It is impossible for the viewer to understand how this plain, charmless woman (underplayed by Martine Carol) could seduce and inspire composers and kings. Where is the beauty, the sexiness, the vivacity of Lola? I am not asking for a documentary but the real life story of Lola is so much more interesting. I know that Ophuls is commenting on the downside of celebrity - Lola wants to be a star and ends up in a circus (if Ophuls made this today, Lola would appear in a TV "reality" show or sex tape) - but without a compelling central character the spectacle falls as flat as the cardboard cutouts of Lola.

Baz Luhrmann's "Moulin Rouge!" owes something to Lola Montes.The movie has its moments -- it worked for me as a meditation on the exploitation of love, and the exploitation of despair. Some have commented on the wooden Martine Carol performance, but I thought that was the point. Lola Montes is a blank slate onto whom her admirers project what they want to see. She's vibrant and captivating only to men who want her. And why do they want her? The endless stream of men willing to pay a dollar to kiss her hand -- they want her only because so many other men have wanted her, famous men. It's not about getting a piece of Lola the person, it's about getting a piece of Lola the brand. She's a product (in a cage!) marketed by Ustinov. They have a creepily symbiotic relationship -- the huckster needs his product, and the product needs to be sold. Before she sells out to Ustinov, Lola lives for love, exploits it for all she's worth, and is exploited for all she's worth. In despair, she turns to Ustinov's show, where she daily and literally recreates her fall from the heights of romance to the tawdry center ring, where her life is exposed to question and ridicule from the cheap seats. Not a bad flick. I thought the cheesy storytelling techniques -- the flashbacks, the elements of predictability (of course she's going to meet the King of Germany) her "dangerously weak heart" and the concerned doctor -- were ham handed by design, slyly self-mocking. Lola Montes is a movie worth seeing and thinking about.