Lutz Bacher Performing Arts Books: Ophuls sku-29269566

Lutz Bacher's Max Ophuls in the Hollywood Studios is a hardcover title in Performing Arts Books (SKU sku-29269566). Max Ophuls, often considered one of the greatest film directors, has long been viewed as an auteur in complete control of his work. Bacher examines that view through Ophuls' American career, connecting the production circumstances of his films to their distinctive style.

Using archival documents and interviews with more than sixty of Ophuls' contemporaries, he follows the European director's efforts to find a place in the U.S. film industry. Ophuls worked as a ghostwriter and substitute director and had a debilitating association with Preston Sturges and Howard Hughes.

He then made four films in thirty months, including Letter from an Unknown Woman and Caught, before returning to Europe with a runaway production intended to star Greta Garbo. Bacher argues that Ophuls adapted conventional Hollywood methods through compromise and subversion, developing a style distinctive to his American films that informed his later work.

The book combines production history, stylistic analysis and biography for film scholars and fans of Ophuls' work.