Saturday, March 27 (7:15pm, PST or 10:15pm, ET)
In a recent posting, I cited an Asian adaptation by Jinglei Xu of Stefan Zweig’s story A Letter From An Unknown Woman among my favorites of the past decade. There is also a 1948 version starring Joan Fontaine and Louis Jourdan that is a must see. Directed by Max Ophuls, it’s a romantic story about a woman who loves a man, unbeknownst to him, nearly her whole life. Instead of cloying sentimentality, the film unfolds as the stunning reveal to a mystery — the mystery of a careless man’s life and how it is given meaning by a woman he is ultimately unworthy of.
It’s Vienna, circa 1900, and concert pianist Stefan Brand moves into the same building where young Lisa (Joan Fontaine) lives with her mother. Lisa’s consciousness to life is awakened. She is intrigued by the beautiful possessions being moved into Brand’s apartment. She hears him playing music before even seeing him. And finally, when he does appear in the effortlessly handsome form of Jourdan, Lisa is fatefully struck by love.
Although better known for Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940) and 1941’s Suspicion (for which she won her Best Actress Oscar), Joan Fontaine gives her most accomplished performance here. She plays Lisa first as a gawky girl, then as a blushing ingénue, and finally as a graceful wife and mother. In every phase, we are impressed by Lisa’s devotion and the dignity she lives by no matter how continuously anonymous she is to the man she loves.
Fontaine’s voiceover narration is another gift. Her voice is lilting, caressing, and elegant. You remember Manderley because of her and her narration in Jane Eyre (1946) remains stirring even though the words are not entirely lifted from Charlotte Bronte’s original novel. As Lisa, Fontaine delivers painful truth without cruelty and bitterness: "I wanted to be one woman you had known who asked you for nothing."
In Letter from an Unknown Woman, it is easy to think that Fontaine has wasted her youth and her life, but the irony is that it is Jourdan who has misspent his years and lost out on genuine happiness. Accustomed to living without depth, he remarks glibly that: “Honor is a luxury only gentlemen can afford”. He plans to forgo honor until he receives Lisa’s letter revealing her life and his own. Only then does she steal into his heart and he finally considers his life seriously.
[Note: The film is not available on DVD (at least not in the U.S.) and the VHS release is a rarity.]
Previous posts of interest:
• Star Quality: Joan Fontaine
• Top Films of the Decade
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Joan Walsh
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Comments
Trivia about Joan Fontaine: she's Olivia de Havilland's sister. Once you know that, you can really see and hear the resemblance!
As for the sisters Joan and Olivia, sigh, they're both in their 90s, but they haven't spoken to each other in over 30 years. They grew up competing, sister vs. sister, and it gets all the more complicated when each of you has an Oscar and a Hollywood legacy. (Actually, Olivia has two Oscars, but Joan won hers first.)
I say it's keeping them alive because neither wants to give the other the pleasure of dying last.
"Letter From a Unknown Woman" is a masterpiece. It's the most thoroughly european film ever made in the U.S.
Speaking of "Letter" movies...have you seen "A Letter to Three Wives"? Directed by Joseph Mankiewicz, and starring Anne Sothern, Jeanne Crain, Linda Darnell, and a handsome young Kirk Douglas, as well as an underappreciated Paul Douglas in a really good performance here.
I really like that movie, even though I know how it ends...I always manage to keep wondering which of the wives is going to be left by her husband at the end of the movie. If you haven't seen it, it's a good one.