So much for my earlier decision not to see this. Eh, I have changed some in seven years. Anyway, yes, that is the entire title, tho it's just Madam de... in the original French. Whenever her surname would be given, it is completely drowned out, interrupted, or visually blocked. I still don't know the purpose -- maybe trying to convey that all sorts of women are like her? At least we know her first name, and the significance of her jewelry becomes apparent almost immediately.
In what I take to be the 19th century, Louise (Danielle Darieux) has been so profligate in her Parisian decadence that she sees fit to sell the earrings her husband, André (Charles Boyer), gave her for their wedding. To save face, she claims to have lost them, but the jeweler (Jean Debucourt) sells them back to André, who gives them to his mistress (Lia Di Leo), who sells them to pay off her own debts. Their next buyer, Fabrizio (Vittorio De Sica), just happens to run into Louise and fall for her....
You may think André, in light of his own affair, either wouldn't mind Louise seeing another man or would be a hypocrite for minding. But among the nobles of the setting, the real scandal is not in adultery so much as in extramarital romance. And secrets have a way of getting found out, not least with the traveling earrings and the inadequate lies that follow. André being a general, he reacts fiercely to anyone threatening his public honor.
With the titular evasiveness, the contrived coincidences, and the unflattering depiction of aristocracy, you could be forgiven for assuming we're talking about a comedy. Instead, it never tries to be funny. It's more like a soap opera with a small central cast. Louise is even prone to falling faint, tho André suspects she fakes or exaggerates.
On the DVD I rented, Paul Thomas Anderson has a lot to say, starting with a focus on the long opening shot. Oddly enough for me, I hadn't noticed at first, because it didn't seem very charged (kinda like how Licorice Pizza begins). In retrospect, there's some pretty dynamic camerawork throughout, mostly for the better. And I don't know whether to credit the writing or the acting more, but it's easy enough to care about the main characters, even if you don't like them.
I can see why TEoMd got mixed reviews when new and gradually gained a fandom. It mixes the beautiful with the ugly, making for an acquired taste, all the while asking us to suspend disbelief in the improbable. It's no fave of mine, but I put it ahead of the other Max Ophüls work I know.
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