Capsule Movie Reviews

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The Earrings of Madame de (1953)

The Earrings of Madame de:  The  film opens with the husband sending away his mistress—an act motivated partly by a sense of loyalty to his wife, partly by a desire to assert control over his domestic life and his identity as a high-ranking military figure. However, the illusion of control with its underlying violence unravels when, in a brutal act, he kills the man his wife loves, causing the death of his wife at the same time. Louise undergoes a profound transformation: from a frivolous, complacent woman preoccupied with social prestige, diamond jewelry, and fur coats, she becomes a devoted lover who relinquishes all her possessions to buy back the diamond earrings as a sign of her love. In tragic contrast, her husband’s arc moves in the opposite direction: from an affectionate and protective partner to a man capable of cruelty that can be justified by regressive social norms in which masculinity is at its center.  The man he destroys is guilty of selfless love—yet in eliminating him, the general destroys his wife, and himself. The film begins with an image of the diamond earrings that she reluctantly decides to sell to cover her debts. In the end, another shot of the same earrings closes the circle of pain that Ophuls' characters cannot escape. The circular pattern is similar to the structure of the opening long take, creating another cycle that depicts the complacent lifestyle of Madame de.

Madame de looks into a circular mirror, only a small section reflects her image; the remainder is ornamentation, enhancing the mirror's beauty. This juxtaposition suggests the significance of her facade in her glamorous lifestyle.

Man of the West (1958)

The last major western of Anthony Mann, possibly his best. The leading character, Link Jones, follows the archetypal revenge path of Mann’s protagonist, though in this movie, the revenge, unlike his movies with Jimmy Stewart, is initially not self-conscious. On his arrival at the shack where his ex-gang members live, in response to one of them asking how he found the place, he states, “I stumbled into it.” Mann returns to the theme of violence as the undercurrent of relationships between the gang members. In Winchester '73 (1950), Mann added a different aspect to the violence by making the villain a blood relative of the protagonist. Here, he returns to the idea: the gang members are not true relatives, but they all grew up under Dock Tobin's supervision, whom they call 'uncle'. As in Winchester '73, the narrative follows the protagonist’s gun; he loses it at the beginning during a train raid and recovers it by killing his doppelgänger, Claude. The journey leads to his redemption, and along with it, he reclaims his tarnished masculinity, a moment that, in the tradition of the western genre, occurs when the westerner loses his gun. As a typical bar girl in the Western genre, Julie London adds a distinct cynicism to her character, depicting a dark past that compels the protagonist onto a path of revenge, a path others may share. Her excellent performance in the scene where Coaley, one of the bandits, forces her to undress, subtly suggests to Link that she has endured similar ordeals before; it is Link, stripped of his authority and unable to protect his ‘woman,’ who is forced to undress. Mann, renowned for his ability to portray landscapes and illustrate the protagonist's rugged nature, develops an exceptional interior scene with a nuanced mise en scène as Link returns to his dark past.  Years ago, Link had left the shack, looking for a way out of the underworld that Doc Tobin had built. Stranded after the train raid, he finds himself back in the same darkness that has survived the challenging time. This time, however, he has a woman to protect.

Mann separates Link and Julie London on the wagon with two of the bandits in the background. Dock Tobin, still emotionally attached to Link, who unexpectedly left him, stands between the two groups.