Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948)

"Lifelong obsession" with this film!?
Hmm. O.K. Here goes!
I first saw this film 50 years ago. Had to wait another 25 years to see it again. It was just as hypnotic as I remembered.
Now another 20 years have passed and I finally HAVE a copy!
This has been my favourite film all my life.
I hate the fact that I am becoming more "critical" of it, but that is probably normal when you have thought about a work of art many times?
So, although (almost) everyone who first sees it seems inevitably to side with LISA and condemn STEFAN...I understand so much better now what a (cruelly?) clueless position the poor guy was in....she makes a point of NEVER telling him anything!
As he ages (and goes downhill) he apparently realizes that something of great significance in Life has somehow eluded him....of course Lisa is sure (maybe rightly so?) that that treasure of Destiny is HERSELF.Here I get critical! If she "loves" him so much why does she show him no compassion? How come she...the great lover is too stupid to help him "find himself"? help him remember?....why go to him at all if she loses her nerve THROUGH SELF PITY?
I think I can say why you won't be being "critical" while you are actually watching this film....It's the clever use of the score....which is apparently crafted to guide the audience AWAY from being cynical or critical: designed to support the Lisa as 100% victim interpretation.
Because EVERY single time the critical faculty is about to comment, the MUSIC either crashes or slides or glides or murmurs "not now"....so I can be critical in detached mode...but will simply admire this masterpiece for what it is whilst under it's spell...probably tomorrow!
SPOILERS FOLLOW....
(P.S....I would rather class the "love angle" here with "the story of Adele H" or "Elvira Madigan" than with a story of True Great Love.
Why? Because the mature Lisa seems to suddenly lose her self-directed maverick "love" (as if that was merely a relic of her younger self )and faced with reality(which she is apparently too immature to overcome with REAL LOVE) it lets her down at a crucial moment...her husband who "rescued" her life was the same man who proposed years ago. It is HE who sees her enter/leave Stefan's apartment...it is HE who has challenged Stefan to a duel, although "nothing happened" and Stefan was politely bemused by her visit, It is that duel (of which she knows nothing) which will cause the death of Stefan, exhausted after a night of reading her letter!

"A Beautiful Love Story"
A lovely romantic story. I was delighted to find this movie on DVD format available now here at Amazon.A romantic movie to watch again and again.

A Piece of Art...
I must say that there have been few movies (dramas) which have emotioned me so much as this work of art by master director Max Ophüls (credited as Opuls here)...only films like "Portrait of Jennie" or "Dodsworth"...this was another one-of-a-kind experience for me.

I had read so much about it, that I had to SEE it...so I bought this VHS here, at Amazon.com marketplace sellers, where I've always made great transactions & had very good overall experiences, especially when it comes to obtain, these "out of stock/print", kind of elusive gems.

Joan Fontaine gives what one can easily be, the most wondrous, poetic, performance, she ever gave, including "Rebecca" and "Suspicion"...Here she simply is at her very best, close to perfection...just as Jennifer Jones, gave (IMHO) THE performance of her career in the aforementioned "Portrait of Jennie". She convicingly grows from an "innocent" adolescent who falls deeply in love with an artist (Louis Jourdan), looking him, following him, listening to him, "in hiding", "in the shadows", quietly, living her life only "for/because of him"... although he's unaware of that. This obsession of hers with this man, reaches to a point where nothing makes sense to her without him. It's platonic love & adoration, taken to extreme limits, almost to the boundaries of insanity, yet so disarmingly naive and true!

Louis Jourdan is equally effective, as the debonair, devil-make-care, playboy, man of the world, pianist, who realizes too late, what has been going on.

Wonderful art direction, sets, mood, atmosphere, cinematography, narration...excellent "raccontos/flashbacks"...great camera work, gowns, period detail...everything is so right...especially the truth in Lisa's (Fontaine) very deep love for this man, who becomes the only reason of her life, of her "breathing", of her "existence".

Max Ophüls really made a work of art, out of this movie...which by the way, I read somewhere, had a similar plot than the 1933 "Only Yesterday", which marked the debut in the american cinema, of that gorgeous actress, Margaret Sullavan; although Ophüls' film, is by far superior...'cos it "trascends" the "Tearjerker" status; it has an ethereal quality all of his own.

Not since watching "Shadowlands" in March of this year, I had felt & been so moved by a film. Really, ROMANTIC, unrequited love, at his best. And I tell you, I'm not an "easy" person...in other words, I do not "emote" easily, and at the film's conclussion, I have no shame in admitting that I cried like a baby. It reached my heart & soul.

This film ought to be restored and released on dvd format, since it is one of the landmark films of all time. Although I must say the Republic VHS Edition, is decent indeed.