Max Ophüls, France/Italy 1953, 105 min
Bound via marriage to the cold General André (Charles Boyer), the Comtesse Louise de... (Danielle Darrieux) pawns a pair of diamond earrings given to her by her husband in order to pay off a large debt. Discovering his wife’s act, the General buys back the earrings as a gift for his mistress, and as the jewelry moves from owner to owner throughout upper-class Europe – ending in the hands of the Baron (Vittorio De Sica), the Comtesse’s new lover – director Max Ophüls’s constantly moving camera reveals the poignant loneliness and doomed romanticism that lie under the elegant façades of his characters. A sharp and graceful examination of love and loss, The Earrings of Madame de… is widely regarded as one of the finest romantic dramas of all time.
December 30 : Cleveland Museum of Art
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