Synopsis
The Earrings of Madame de... (Madame de…, 1953) is a French-Italian melodrama directed by Max Ophüls — watch it online on iFILM. Danielle Darrieux, Charles Boyer and Vittorio De Sica play out a story built around a pair of diamond earrings that keep changing hands and accumulating meaning each time they do.
The Countess Louise quietly sells the earrings her husband gave her on their wedding day to cover a private debt. Her husband, General André, finds out and buys them back without letting on. The earrings make their way back to Louise as a gift from Baron Donati, an Italian diplomat she has fallen for — and what started as a small society lie has by then become something no amount of grace can contain.
Ophüls shot the whole film in near-constant motion, his camera gliding through ballrooms and up staircases in long fluid takes that mirror the social world the characters inhabit: everything appears to flow effortlessly, and everything is unraveling underneath. The film regularly appears on lists of the greatest ever made, and the reputation holds. Stream The Earrings of Madame de... (1953) online on iFILM.
Starring
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