An all-knowing interlocutor guides us through a series of affairs in Vienna, 1900. A soldier meets an eager young lady of the evening. Later he has an affair with a young lady, who becomes a maid and does similarly with the young man of the house. The young man seduces a married woman. On and on, spinning on the gay carousel of life.
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Arthur Schnitzel's classic play "Reigen" was the basis for this 1950 film conceived, adapted, and directed by Max Ophuls. Jacques Natanson assisted with the screenplay.We are taken to the Vienna of the turn of the 20th century, where a master of ceremonies introduces the viewer to a series of vignettes in which each character shows his or her love to someone, who in turn reappears in a new situation with another character. Schnitzler was perhaps exploring the connection that exists among human beings, a sort of "six degrees of separation", if you will, that happens to most of us in one form, or another. The idea of life as a merry-go-round serves well the adaptation.A star cast was gathered to play the different people that inhabit the film. Anton Walbrook, the Vienise actor, is the narrator, as well as the man that introduces us to the different situations. Simone Signoret, Serge Regianni, Simone Simon, Daniel Gelin, Danielle Darrieux, Fernand Gravey, Odette Joyeux, Jean-Louis Barrault, Isa Miranda and Gerard Philipe play the different characters with elegance and charm.
French stars of the day abound in "La Ronde," Max Ophuls ode to love in the Vienna of 1900. Anton Walbrook serves as narrator and plays some small roles in the various vignettes, which star Simone Signoret, Simone Simon, Serge Reggiani, Danielle Darrieux, Ferdinand Gravey, Jean-Louis Barrault, Isa Miranda, and Gerard Philip - quite a cast.Using the image of the carousel, the narrator takes us through a series of love/lust stories which by 1950 standards are at times very explicit, so much so that the film wasn't released in the U.S. until 1954, though its original release to other countries was in 1950. There is prostitution, adultery, performance anxiety, an older man with practically a teenager, and an older woman/younger man scenario.Employing a beautiful, catchy theme by Oscar Strauss, "La Ronde" is lyrical with lovely performances, and certainly nothing like the films it inspired - Vadim's remake and also the later "Chain of Desire" (not one of my favorites). Some of the stories are short, some not as good, but they all are infused with charm, humor, fluidity, and beautiful atmosphere and detail of the period.Though not in the Orphuls version, which emphasizes love and sex with the narrator's cynical and amused view, the original play has to do with the spread of STDs, a theme picked up in "Chain of Desire." "La Ronde," however, is all about pleasure and fun.
In recent years, most French films I have seen seems to have been sexually obsessed. This is interesting and may account for some of the reason Americans and Frenchmen often don't seem to see eye to eye. American films are many times sexually obsessed as well, though not as apparently often and not in films from the 1930s to the 1960s. However, sex, not love, was the focus in many French films from this same period--such as The Rules of the Game (1939) and La Ronde (1950). Now I am NOT making a blanket indictment of French films--I LOVE many of them and have great respect for the work. However, it's a real shame, as I began watching many more French films in recent months so I could find some good and acceptable French films for students in our school's French classes and I have been FAR less successful than I'd hoped.In the case of La Ronde, the stories, though well presented, do not center on love but sex and STDs. The movie opens with a wonderful narrator (sort of like a cupid who likes to encourage and set up sexual encounters--not making the couples fall head over heals in love). The first is a rather surly soldier who gets a "quickie" under the bridge with a prostitute (this is certainly NOT a romance) and goes from there to various adulterous affairs involving unfaithful wives as well as husbands. We are also told that "love" is very fleeting and NEVER lasts. Perhaps this is true with prostitutes and mistresses, but saying all love is fleeting is a very sad message indeed.If the movie had instead focused on real love and not solely the glandular type, this could have been a VERY sweet and well-crafted movie. As it is, it is a smarmy and still well-crafted movie.The comment made by writers_reign about this movie was brilliant and undoubtedly true. In light of STD transmission, this puts the movie in a new light and makes a lot of sense. Still, is THAT really what you want to see?! YUCK!
Psychology was one of the most important aspects in the plays of Arthur Schnitzler, Vienna's most brilliant and best-known fin de siècle dramatist. German director Max Ophüls knew this of course, still, in my opinion he didn't put psychology first in his very drama-like film version of Schnitzler's play Der Reigen. Ophüls lays quite a lot of weight into the appearances of the mysterious `showmaster', which makes the film rather dark and a little bit spooky, although it is in fact about perfectly ordinary people and their instincts.The actors are French and speak French (although the setting remains Vienna). The language makes the film a little more pathetic than it should be: `l'amour' has completely different qualities than `Liebe' or `love'. 6 out of 10.
