Le Roman de Werther (1938)
Directed by Max Ophüls

Film Review

One of the most inspired and alluring of the films that Max Ophüls directed in France in the late 1930s before his departure for Hollywood is this haunting adaptation of Goethe's famous novel The Sorrows of Young Werther, arguably the first great work in German literature.  The stylistic and thematic characteristics that define Ophüls's distinctive oeuvre are easily spotted in Le Roman de Werther - in particular, his penchant for elegant camera motion, evidenced here by some startlingly effective tracking shots and zooms.  Ophüls's preoccupation with society's ill-treatment of women is also apparent, to the extent that the narrative appears to be more concerned with Charlotte, young Werther's inaccessible lover, with Werther playing an almost peripheral role in the proceedings.  It is interesting to note that, on this film, Ophüls was assisted by Jacqueline Audry, whose own work as a director is also predominately female-centric, most notably her Colette adaptations such as Gigi (1949) and Minne, l'ingénue libertine (1950).

The choice of Pierre Richard-Willm for the role of Werther comes as no great surprise - although the actor is clearly too old for the part, he has the requisite 'doomed romantic' look about him and tended to appear more at home in period pieces such as this than contemporary dramas.  One of the biggest names in French cinema in the 1930s, Richard-Willm had just played the lead in Ophül's previous film Yoshiwara (1937) and would acquire a measure of immortality through his portrayal of Edmond Dantès in Robert Vernay's Le Comte de Monte-Cristo (1943).  As well-suited for the part of Werther as he is, Richard-Willm is almost totally eclipsed by his extraordinarily beautiful co-star Annie Vernay, a perfect casting choice for the role of Charlotte.

At the time, Annie Vernay was just sixteen years old but already she was a star of French cinema.  She had just starred alongside Richard-Willm in Fedor Ozep's Tarakanowa (1938), having made her screen debut in Victor Tourjansky's Le Mensonge de Nina Petrovna (1938).  After Le Roman de Werther, Vernay appeared in just four more films (including Raymond Bernard's Les Otages) before she died suddenly at the age of 19, after contracting typhus, ironically whilst on her way to Hollywood, for what might well have been a glittering career on the other side of the Atlantic.

Not only does Annie Vernay have an electrifying screen presence, she was also a remarkably gifted actress, and the main reason for watching this comparatively minor entry in Ophüls's oeuvre is to marvel at the quality of her performance.  So convincingly does Vernay portray the agonies and ecstasies of an imperilled romantic infatuation (assisted by the sheer dramatic power of her director's mise-en-scène) that she all but steals the film's focus, reducing poor young Werther practically to the status of a mere instrument of fate.  Rarely in cinema is a broken heart revealed to us as vividly and authentically as it is here - and it is heartbreaking to see it.

Film Synopsis

The setting is the German city of Wetzlar, towards the end of the 18th century.  Werther is a young man of a romantic temperament, a poet and musician who occupies an important position at the town hall.  How tragic that he should fall in love with Charlotte, the fiancée of his friend and colleague Albert Hochstätter.  When Albert is away, Werther and Charlotte live the perfect idyll, but both know that their romance cannot continue.  Once Charlotte and Albert are married, Werther succumbs to a numbing depression and begins to live recklessly.  His conduct earns him the reprobation of his superiors and he soon loses his post.  Still incurably in love with Charlotte, Werther sees only one way out of his miserable predicament...