His real name is Maximilian Oppenheimer.
He studied at the University of Frankfurt and the Theatre School in Stuttgart. At the age of nineteen he began to play on the stage of the provincial theater, and two years later he made his debut as a theater director in Dortmund and Elberfeld. For several years he has staged more than one hundred and fifty dramatic and opera performances in the theaters of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. He also writes and directs radio plays. In 1930 he came to the cinema as an assistant to Anatoly Litvak. And finally, in 1930 he made his debut as a film director with the film for children “Then it is better fish oil”, followed by the comedies “Firm in Love” (1931) and “Laughter-Heirs” (1931), the film adaptation of B. Smetana’s opera “Sold Bride” (1932) and “Flirt” (1932) based on the play of Arthur Schnitzler, “the poet of the dying Austro-Hungarian Empire”. This meeting with Schnitzler for many years determined the artistic preferences, drama and poetics of O., a charming mixture of nostalgia, melancholy and light salon eroticism, love for the capital of the Viennese waltz.
In 1933, Ophuls, a Jew by birth, was forced to leave Hitler’s Germany. He filmed in Italy the passing picture “The Signora for All” (1934), and then moved to France, where he lived and worked until the outbreak of World War II. As a kind of "business card" O. removes here the French version of "Flirt" (1933), azatempractically without interruptions a whole series of film adaptations of classical and modern literature, which are united only by a general romantic mood and a waltzing camera. Among these films are “Divine” (1935), “Tender Enemy” (1936), “Werther’s Romance” (1938, according to Goethe). And just before the outbreak of World War II - one of his best films, imbued with a premonition of the coming cataclysm "From Meyerling to Sarajevo" (1940). In October 1940, O. was mobilized into the army, but without removing his military uniform, he continued to work in the cinema, finishing the films he began and preparing for the next productions. However, in late 1940, he fled to the United States, where he worked on radio and received the first production only six years later. Among the films shot in America, it should be noted only the adaptation of Stefan Zweig's novel "Letter of a Stranger" (1948) in which the beauty of Vienna, shrouded in the haze of romantic memories, again appears on the screen. In 1950, after a decade of absence on the French screen triumphantly comes one of the most significant paintings of O., “Carousel” again on the play of Schnitzler, again in a light “Viennese” style, again in the rhythm of the waltz. This fidelity to his own style, despite the years and circumstances, is undoubted in the subsequent works of the director - the charming film adaptation of the three novels of Guy de Maupassant's "Pleasure" (1951), "Madame de...." (1953) and his best picture "Lola Montes" (1956), godlessly shortened at the request of distributors, but then, without bills, released again under the pressure of film criticism after the death of the director. In 1957, shortly before his death, O. began work on a film about Amedeo Modigliani (the film was completed in the same year by Jacques Becker called Montparnasse 19).
The son of Max Ophuls, Marcel Ophuls (born November 1, 1927), is a French film director.
Filmography:
"Then better fish oil" (Dannschon LieberLebertran), 1930; "Firm in Love" (Die Verliebte Fir-ma), "Laughing heirs" (Die La-chende Erben), both - 1931; "Sold bride" (Der Verkaufte Braut), "Flirt" (Liebelej), both - 1932; "La Signora di Tutti" (La Signora di Tutti), "On a vole" un homme", "The Tenne" (1934), "The Montérique" (Dorrowland), "The Montary" (191936), "The Montre), "The Montérème", "The Montérème" (The Montée)" (The Montérème), "The Monté, (191934), "The Montre), "The Montérème"; "The Montée)" (The Montée)"; "The Monté, (191934), "The Montée