100 La signora di tutti

[souvenir]

Using bold letters, Moullet's essay mentions the following films (besides La signora di tutti): Liebelei, La Tosca , Ballerina [Ballerine], Acciaio [Steel], Condottieri [Leaders], The Blue Light [Das blaue Licht], Leave Her to Heaven, Sensualidad [Sensuality], Ruby Gentry, A Star Is Born, Una donna librera [A Free Woman], Mildred Pierce, Stella Dallas, The Strange Woman, The Life of Oharu, The Legend of Lylah Clare, The Star, The Power and the Glory, The Man Shot Liberty Valance, Lola Montes, Madame de..., Gone with the Wind, The Exile, Open City, The Four Hundred Blows, Rebecca, La Ronde and Letter from an Unknown Woman.

[zedz]

With a few exceptions, those films seem to me about ten or twenty times better known that La signora di tutti, so it seems quite reasonable to describe a relatively obscure film by reference to much better known ones (even if, personally, I might find some of the references, like the Liberty Valance one, gratuitous, as I can't see any meaningful relationship between the two, just plot coincidence).

There can't be many people in RossyG's position of having seen La signora di tutti but not Ophuls' two most famous films or Liberty Valance. What audience are we talking about exactly?

[Dylan]

There can't be many people in RossyG's position of having seen La signora di tutti but not Ophuls' two most famous films or Liberty Valance.

Oddly enough, I'm in this position (though I will certainly go through the rest of Ophuls at some point).

I actually saw this on the RHV Italian disc earlier this year (before the MOC edition was announced) and thought the film was a masterpiece. The girl is beautiful. The guys are beautiful or dashing. Everyone is dressed in tux & tie. And poor Gaby--scandal everywhere she goes & she gets nothing of what she wants. Fame & money are empty lies. People want her and

Spoiler

kill themselves over her

. Scene after scene, shot after shot, gesture after gesture are just perfect. Gaby getting excited & walking up the stairs when she's allowed to leave home & attend a party. Gaby in the rowboat. Gaby in the opera box. Gaby freaking out from guilt over Alma when she returns home with Roberto's dad. Gaby & Roberto meeting at the airport & walking & talking. There's just a tremendous beauty in nearly every shot of this film.

It really is a one of a kind movie that could only come out of Ophuls, the 30s, and Italy. Though whether the world it depicts is real or false I don't know. The film itself has this same question at the heart of it: can life live up to our cinematic, commodified dreams of it? Of course not, but is saying that also just another cinematic, commodified dream? Hmmm... and so it goes, round & round like the opening phonograph record until the printing press stops.

As much as the world would want her to be everybody's woman, she can only comply by becoming a celebrity, not by actually fulfilling anybody's real dreams of her.

And how about that final shot:

Spoiler

The machine of publicity and commodification and celebrity and feeding people's fantasies must continue. Once this girl is gone, it will continue with the next girl.

[Yojimbo]

Watched it a couple of nights ago, although I'll have to give it another go as I was quite tired watching it and dozed off every now and then.
I doubt though that when I do get to watch it, uninterrupted, I'll love it as much as my favourite Ophuls, such as 'Madame De', but its still a film to treasure.
It featured many wonderful trademark Ophuls shots, I particularly loved the scene where she was rowing a boat and he was driving alongside; the car seemed to be gliding on water, and the scene prompted a 'how did he do that', because of the beautifully fluid way it was unveiled.
Theme-wise it reminded me somewhat of Antonioni's underrated 'La signora senza camelie' which, admittedly, is no bad thing

[Dylan]

I re-watched this recently and came back to this thread to re-read the discussion and was very, very surprised to see just one post since my initial praise two+ years ago (yojimbo, did you ever go back and watch it in its entirety?). So here I am to bump this up in the hopes that others check it out.

A really, really, really amazing film - a big glossy tragedy among beautiful celebrities. It's like The Carpetbaggers only written by Shakespeare. It's just transcendent. And every single shot is beautiful.

But it seems to have fallen through the cracks. Not that Ophuls has. He certainly has a following but this film isn't on the radar. I mean where is the domestic DVD of it?

[Yojimbo]

I re-watched this recently and came back to this thread to re-read the discussion and was very, very surprised to see just one post since my initial praise two+ years ago (yojimbo, did you ever go back and watch it in its entirety?). So here I am to bump this up in the hopes that others check it out.

A really, really, really amazing film - a big glossy tragedy among beautiful celebrities. It's like The Carpetbaggers only written by Shakespeare. It's just transcendent. And every single shot is beautiful.

But it seems to have fallen through the cracks. Not that Ophuls has. He certainly has a following but this film isn't on the radar. I mean where is the domestic DVD of it?

Hi Dylan; no, I haven't watched it, since: "so many film, so little time,....etc, etc..."
Its been a while since I've watched any Ophuls, so I might put this one to the head of the Ophuls queue, but I won't be fitting in a re-watch in for another few days, at least

[shaky]

So I'm not getting the curly corners on my Samsung. I am using a region free dvd player with the picture size set at 4/3(I know the film is in 1.37:1 though). Can anyone explain what I'm doing wrong with my settings?

[RobertB]

Pretty sure this is a setting on your TV. On my Philips TV it is a setting called "screen edges" that needs to be set to 0.

It's a while now since I watched the film, but I loved it!

[Roger Ryan]

Sorry about repeating information over various threads, but I discovered last night that the Sony BDP-N460 player zooms in on the image slightly when the output resolution is set at 480p (this does not occur at higher resolution settings). Not sure if the same thing might be happening to your region-free DVD player, "shaky", but you could check this in addition to the TV settings.

[jindianajonz]

My region free Sony (which I believe is the player you are talking about, Shakey) did indeed have the wrong output setting selected by default. You should check the settings and see if that fixes it for you.

I can't remember the exact names for the settings, but you always want to have screen ratio set at 16:9 (assuming that's what your TV is), and for the output setting, you want to choose the option that isn't "original" (It may be fixed frame? I know Roger Ryan talked about them in the Technical Difficulties thread) This should allow all DVDs to be displayed correctly, regardless of what the DVD aspect ratio is.