La Ronde

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Buy This Item La Ronde by Criterion Collection  Available from Amazon  $27.99  on 11-3-2008     Simone Signoret, Anton Walbrook, and Simone Simon lead a roundelay of French stars in Max Ophuls's delightful, acerbic adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler's controversial turn-of-thecentury play La ronde. Soldiers, chambermaids, poets, and aristocrats, all are on equal footing in this multicharacter merry-go-round of love and infidelity, directed with a sweeping gaiety as knowingly frivolous as it is enchanting and shot with Ophuls's trademark intricate cinematography. SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES: New, restored high-definition digital transfer, Audio commentary featuring film scholar Susan White, author of The Cinema of Max Ophuls, Interview with Max Ophuls's son, the Academy Award winning filmmaker Marcel Ophuls Interview with actor Daniel Gelin (Napoleon, Testament of Orpheus) Interview with film scholar Alan Williams, Selected correspondence between Sir Laurence Olivier and Heinrich Schnitzler (the playwright's son), illustrating the controversy surrounding the source play New and improved English subtitle translation. PLUS: A new essay by film critic Terrence Raffert Reader Reviews It was a happy day when I first heard Criterion was finally releasing Max Ophüls' two great films, La Ronde (1950) and Criterion Collection: Earrings of Madame De. Ophüls is known for his brilliant tracking shots and elaborate camera movements (which influenced Stanley Kubrick). He is also known for his black-and-white French bedroom farce, La Ronde (1950), starring Anton Walbrook, Simone Signoret, and Gérard Philipe, based on Arthur Schnitzler's controversial 1897 play, Reigen. (Adolf Hitler considered Schnitzler's play obscene for its depiction of the sexual morals and class ideology of its day. Schnitzler, a doctor, recognized that syphilis was not limited to certain layers of Viennese society.) La Ronde ("The Roundabout") follows a series of stories about love affairs that end with one of the partners forming a new sexual liaison with another person. A soldier (Serge Reggiani) first meets a prostitute (Simone Signoret) and then has an affair with a young parlor maid, who then has sex with the young man of the house, who in turn has sex with a young wife, who then has sex with her husband, and so on until the film completes its circle with a Count (Gérard Philipe) having sex with the same prostitute. La Ronde is technically brilliant, the cinematography sparkles, and this is truly great cinema. Roger Ebert calls Ophüls' films "one of the great pleasures of the cinema." The Criterion edition features a newly restored high-definition digital transfer; audio commentary featuring film scholar Susan White, author of The Cinema of Max Ophuls; an interview with Academy Award-winning filmmaker Marcel Ophuls, discussing his father's work; an interview with actor Daniel Gélin (Napoléon, Testament of Orpheus); an interview with film scholar Alan Williams; selected correspondence between Sir Laurence Olivier and Heinrich Schnitzler (the playwright's son), illustrating the controversy surrounding the source play; new subtitle translation; and a new essay by film critic Terrence Rafferty. G. Merritt

La Ronde Available from Amazon Price: $27.99 Updated on 11-3-2008.

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