Journal of Film Preservation - FIAF

Stefan Droessler raconte l’histoire de
la sortie de Lola Montes de Max
Ophuls et décrit les récents efforts
déployés au niveau de la restauration
pour se rapprocher le plus possible de
la version allemande originale. Il
compare les copies des différentes
versions de ce film dans les trois
langues de diffusion originale.
Il étudie les différences au niveau des
instruments de lecture sonore qui ont
affecté les proportions de l’image, fait
état de ses recherches sur Ophuls, et
plus particulièrement sur sa manière
de traiter les couleurs et sur
l’utilisation de plusieurs pistes pour
l’enregistrement sonore. Un tableau
montre quelle langue était utilisée
pour quelle séquence dans les
versions originales allemande et
française. L’auteur détaille également
la manière dont les proportions de
l’image ont été tronquées par les
systèmes sonores dans les versions
imprimées après 1957. On y décrit les
coupures faites à un grand nombre de
séquences, même si les raisons et le
degré de responsabilité de Ophuls
dans ces changements ne sont pas
toujours clairs.
Stefan Droessler fait une description
des copies les plus sûres, trouvées
dans les archives de Munich, de
Luxembourg et de Bruxelles, qui
furent utilisées pour la restauration
de ce film, copies qui étaient
généralement soit incomplète, soit de
mauvaise qualité. On s’est basé sur le
négatif original allemand pour cette
restauration et on a fait appel aux
copies anglaises et françaises en cas
de besoin. La restauration a été
entreprise sur HDTV. Cet outil digital a
permis de pallier les écarts de qualité
des différentes sources utilisées et de
se rapprocher le plus possible de
l’intention originale de Max Ophuls.
was impossible to recreate the original colour, neither with traditional
means nor digital techniques. Yet, the question remained, how one
single print could possibly show colour fading in so many different
states. A close examination led to an astonishing conclusion: the
magenta passages were clips that had been spliced into the print
before the magnetic sound stripe was put onto it. The Munich Lola
Montes print had been reedited before it was even released - strangely
enough, for cuts normally are executed in the negative and not in the
positives. What had happened to Lola Montes ?
Language versions and distribution versions
The premières of the German version of Lola Montes on January 12, 1956
in Munich and on January 13, 1956 in Hamburg, took place three weeks
after the disappointing French première in Paris. In France a new
distribution cut was in preparation: four sequences were shortened, the
soundtrack was newly mixed down and all parts in foreign languages
were re-dubbed in French. The decision to reedit the German version
too, was already taken, even before its own première, at which the print
was declared to be an “international” one, the “new” German
distribution version still being in preparation. Four weeks later, on
February 9, 1956, this new German version premiered in Berlin and
followed the changes of the re-dubbed French version (released in
France on January 20, 1956): the multilingual parts had been replaced
by German dubbing, the sound had been remixed and the same four
sequences cut.
For financial reasons, the prints struck for the première were reedited:
the shortened sequences were cut directly out of the positives and the
originally subtitled multilingual passages were substituted by newly
struck material of the same passages. The poorer colour quality of
these film clips, whose colour didn’t harmonise with the rest of the
film, was noticed at that time already - obviously they had been
produced without great care, and their colour is not as stable as for rest
of the film. Both known prints, the French one by Braunberger and the
Munich print, are prints of the reedited and re-dubbed second and not
of the première versions.
The English language print was never granted a première in a version
matching the intentions of Max Ophüls. On the contrary, Ophüls
reported that in 1956, at the occasion of a French Film Festival in
London, he was able to prevent the release of an English edition, made
behind his back, which was cut down to 90 minutes, told Lola’s story
chronologically with a new voice-over commentary by herself and
reduced the circus story which forms the framework of the entire film,
to the last episode of her life story. When a new French version, cut in
the same chronological manner, was released in Paris on February 22,
1957, Max Ophüls has already been in a Hamburg hospital for seven
weeks, the hospital in which he was to die four weeks later. The
chronological English version wasn’t released until November 22, 1957,
under the title of The Fall of Lola Montes in London. And two years later,
this version, now reduced to 75 minutes and distributed as an
exploitation film, was released in the US as The Sins of Lola Montes -
unsurprisingly without any success.
6 Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002