Overview

James Naremore's study of Max Ophuls' classic 1948 melodrama, Letter from an Unknown Woman, not only pays tribute to Ophuls but also discusses the backgrounds and typical styles of the film’s many contributors--among them Viennese author Stephan Zweig, whose 1922 novella was the source of the picture; producer John Houseman, an ally of Ophuls who nevertheless made questionable changes to what Ophuls had shot; screenwriter Howard Koch; music composer Daniéle Amfitheatrof; designers Alexander Golitzen and Travis Banton; and leading actors Joan Fontaine and Louis Jourdan, whose performances were central to the film’s emotional effect. Naremore also traces the film's reception history, from its middling box office success and mixed early reviews, exploring why it has been a work of exceptional interest to subsequent generations of both aesthetic critics and feminist theorists. Lastly, Naremore provides an in-depth critical appreciation of the film, offering nuanced appreciation of specific details of mise-en-scene, camera movement, design, sound, and performances, integrating this close analyses into an overarching analysis of Letter’s “recognition plot;” a trope in which the recognition of a character’s identity creates dramatic intensity or crisis. Naremore argues that Letter's use of recognition is one of the most powerful in Hollywood cinema, and contrasts it with what we find in Zweig's novella.

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9781839022340

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Reviews

James Naremore's style and insights are as elegant as a Max Ophuls tracking shot. In this generous, nuanced, and impeccable work, a perfect film has found the ideal film scholar. -- Eric Smoodin, Professor, American Studies, UC Davis, USA With a balanced approach and lucid prose, James Naremore does more than any other writer on Letter From an Unknown Woman to situate the film historically, technically, and aesthetically, in this way accounting for its intellectual and emotional importance to a broad range of critics and viewers -- Susan White, Professor, Film and Comparative Literature, University of Arizona, USA

James Naremore's BFI Classic... [is] guaranteed a rewatch off the back of this succinct breakdown of its novella roots, feminist-theory legacy and 'wheels within wheels' aesthetic. * Total Film * James Naremore's style and insights are as elegant as a Max Ophuls tracking shot. In this generous, nuanced, and impeccable work, a perfect film has found the ideal film scholar. -- Eric Smoodin, Professor, American Studies, UC Davis, USA With a balanced approach and lucid prose, James Naremore does more than any other writer on Letter From an Unknown Woman to situate the film historically, technically, and aesthetically, in this way accounting for its intellectual and emotional importance to a broad range of critics and viewers -- Susan White, Professor, Film and Comparative Literature, University of Arizona, USA

Author Information

James Naremore is Chancellors' Professor Emeritus at Indiana University, USA. Among his books are The Magic World of Orson Welles (2015), Acting in the Cinema (1988), More Than Night: Film Noir in its Contexts (2008), On Kubrick (2007), Sweet Smell of Success (2010), An Invention without a Future: Essays on Cinema (2014), and Charles Burnett: A Cinema of Symbolic Knowledge (2017).

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