La Ronde (1950: France)

Continuing with my sort-of-biweekly foreign movie posts for this year...
For more foreign movies, check out Caroline's World Cinema Series 2012 and Richard's monthly Foreign Film Festival round-up.

Note: See this post for more detail on the play and storyline.

The elegantly structured Arthur Schnitzler play La Ronde lends itself to a movie adaptation and in the hands of director Max Ophuls, who made some wonderful additions, it’s a pleasure to watch. Ophuls keeps the spirit of the play intact, using the same storyline and many of the same lines. Ophuls uses a merry-go-round as the central motif, replacing the round dance of the title and it works extremely well (and lends itself to a wonderful gag for the young man’s impotence). The biggest addition, though, is master of ceremonies Anton Wellbrook. He pushes the action along, providing the hint of a narrative so there is more than just ten separate scenes. In addition to tying the movie together, the emcee also becomes a character in the scenes. If he interacts with the female characters he “directs” them, telling them what to do. When interacting with the male characters the emcee appears in a role consistent with the story.

Fortunately Ophuls doesn’t try to make La Ronde something it isn’t, focusing on the wit and irony of the human state Schnitzler developed in the play. There’s no real backstory for the characters—they simply exist as stereotypes of their role, displaying the societal expectations and judgments of that role. They are allowed to develop as individuals during their liaisons when cajoling or deflecting advances, then ruminating or running away after sex. Since each character (other than the emcee) has two love scenes with two separate characters I found it interesting to note the differences in the way they interact with their two paramours. For example, the husband keeps his wife emotionally at arm’s length while he becomes passionately attached to the sweet young miss. Personal inconsistencies are nothing new but Schnitzler humorously highlights their exaggerated nature when it comes to passion and Ophuls emphasizes the differences.

Both the play and the movie highlight an unsettling topic—passion may be durable but its subject need not be. Or to put it more directly, is it sex that makes the world go round instead of love? The emcee seems resigned that this has been and will be the case, but there’s more than a hint of melancholy in delivering this sentiment. Even though the act is never actually shown, the power of sex remains on full display—it overcomes all social and class barriers in the play and movie. To complicate things further, time after time the relationships are less than satisfying. For such a simple storyline there are plenty of emotional layers and insights.

Other things I loved about the movie:

The acting is superb, combining up-and-coming talent with established French actors. Ophuls doesn’t rely on gimmicks—he lets the actors carry the scenes. Did I mention Simone Simon and Odette Joyeux are in the movie? (Did I say that out loud?)

The simple feel of the movie hides the complicated technical work. There are many long shots of extraordinary length that provide a natural feel to the scenes. See the opening sequence with Anton Wellbrook as he moves across several (literal) stages in the link at the end of the post for a great example.

The Criterion Collection DVD includes several excellent features:

•   Film scholar Alan Williams on La Ronde and Max Ophuls,
•   An interview with Marcel Ophul, (Max’s son),
•   Actor Daniel Gélin on his experience in filming the movie,
•   Correspondence between Laurence Olivier and Heinrich Schnitzler (Arthur’s son) that highlights the controversy surrounding the play and why Arthur Schnitzler forbade production of it. 

 

The movie is available in sections on YouTube. Sample it and enjoy (embedding disabled for the video—click to see the opening scene from the movie), and if the movie interests you be sure to check out the specials on the Criterion Collection DVD.

La Ronde by Arthur Schnitzler

A print of the 1900 private circulation of Der Reigen
Picture source

Arthur Schnitzler’s play La Ronde (Reigen in German), written in 1897 but not performed until the winter of 1920/21, looks at a chain of ten sexual encounters. While known by several names depending on the language of translation, the title, named after a circular dance, often goes by La Ronde since France was the one country Schnitzler allowed the play to be performed after the initial riots and complaints in Berlin and Vienna. An English version, translated as Hands Around, can be found here (no translator noted other than it was ‘authorized’).

In general each of the ten scenes focus on a pair of lovers, fades out for their sexual encounter, then returns for a post-coital conversation. Each character appears in consecutive scenes, except for the prostitute who starts and ends the play. The scenes as listed using the linked translation's names are as follows:

1. The Girl of the Streets [Prostitute] and the Soldier
2. The Soldier and the Parlor Maid
3. The Parlor Maid and the Young Man
4. The Young Man and the Young Wife
5. The Young Wife and the Husband
6. The Husband and the Sweet Young Miss
7. The Sweet Young Miss and the Poet
8. The Poet and the Actress
9. The Actress and the Count
10. The Count and the Girl of the Streets

As you would guess from such a topic and structure, Schnitzler was very open on sexuality despite the veiled language used at times. The structure goes well beyond the alternating couples. The one licit coupling appears at the center of the play between the wife and husband, but even that scene involves the exertion necessary in a marriage (as opposed to the exertion needed for…other things) in addition to the baggage that is brought into a marriage. In a sense, this is the most complicated pairing in the entire play.

There are other devices used in the structure that adds to the play. Generally there is a rise in class from scene to scene until we get to the count and a shift back to the lower class with the prostitute--we have come full circle. To complicate that pairing with her and the count, the sex happened the night before, or so she says…the count can’t remember. Another part of the structure I found interesting was the transition between male dominance in the pairings early on that transitions to female dominance in the latter pairs. Or maybe it would be more correct to say the female sexual power is better disguised in the early pairings.

The play is fun to read to see how each pairing unfolds. It’s clear both parties are willing participants early in each scene, the woman sometimes putting up the appearance of resistance for propriety’s sake. Her actions usually don’t match her protestations, though. The resistance is more pronounced in the earlier scenes, less so in the latter ones. There’s more to explore in the pairings, especially the similarity between scenes with the common character. Often there is a hitch in the pairing, the funniest (to me) is the temporary impotence of the young man in Scene Four. His discussion of Stendhal after the disappointment leads to a successful conclusion. So to speak.

Highly recommended. It would be easy to dismiss the play as simple fun that Schnitzler intended for his friends but the deceptions, and more importantly the self-deceptions, lend themselves to deeper meaning. The married couple provides the most philosophical pairing as the husband waxes eloquently on friendship, love and passion while the wife provides a wistful counterpoint, sardonic at times. His simultaneous understanding and ignorance yields some of the funniest lines of the play. The wife complicates things by bringing up past lovers while the husband does his best to evade the topic. For all his bluster, the husband sums things up rather well:

Husband: If we hadn’t sometimes forgotten that we are in love with each other during the five years we have been married—we might not be in love any longer.

Young Wife: That’s beyond me.

Husband: The case is simply this. We have had perhaps ten or twelve love-affairs with each other [in five years of marriage]…. Doesn’t it seems that way to you, too?

Young Wife: I haven’t counted them!

Husband: If we had enjoyed the first one to the last drop, if I had from the very beginning surrendered without restraint to my passion for you, the same thing would have happened to us that has happened to millions of other lovers. We would be tired of each other.

Update: I've added some comments on the play in my post on Max Ophuls' 1950 movie version of La Ronde.