The Reckless Moment (Max Ophüls, 1949)

The Reckless Moment may be the perfect auteurist specimen. The story itself is not all that convincing, largely because we have to take so much on faith. Would a mother like Lucia Harper (Joan Bennett), who is clearly controlling and utterly Type-A, actually have no earthly idea that her not-quite-18 year old daughter (Geraldine Brooks) was stepping out with a sleazy older man (Sheppard Strudwick)? And would Martin Donnelly (James Mason) be so wistfully ambivalent about his role as a blackmailer that he would suddenly soften in the face of Lucia's domestic entrapment? 

Thankfully, Ophüls treats the plot as formal challenge to overcome, and he succeeds beautifully. By emphasizing the constant demands and distractions of the Harper household -- annoyingly precocious son David (David Bair) and doddering, gregarious father-in-law Tom Sr. (Henry O'Neill), in particular -- The Reckless Moment is able to move at a significant clip, creating a frantic pace that also serves to hurtle us past the implausibilities. (In an interesting twist for a 1940s Hollywood picture, the Harpers' Black maid Sybil, played by an uncredited Frances E. Williams, is the only person who understands that all is not well with Mrs. Harper, although Lucia continually rebuffs her offers of assistance.)

As if to demonstrate his breezy mastery over this mediocre material, Ophüls employs his trademark tracking shots and aggressively awkward framings to intensify the frenetic pace and Lucia's sense of being out of control. The camerawork doesn't really draw attention to itself, this being a studio picture and not an art film. But again and again, Ophüls places Lucia at the center of a shot, rushing through the house or around Los Angeles, as the environment whirls around her. In fact, the interiors of the Harper house must have been constructed at least partially in the round, with the camera as a mobile hub. The Reckless Moment doesn't just trap Lucia, but places her under constant surveillance, like a panopticon.

In its own way, having Mason's good thief appear so late in the film (by my count, nearly 29 minutes in) is as radical as Hitchcock killing off Janet Leigh after three reels. I know that Mason wasn't a huge star in the States at the time The Reckless Moment was released, but he does have top billing. Some viewers might've mistakenly thought the scumbag suitor Darby was Mason's role, not even anticipating that another man would enter the Harpers' life.

Throughout the film, Ophüls experiments with textures and visual opacities. I know everyone (rightly) focuses on the camera movement when talking about this director. But his treatment of film space as a series of densities and collisions of patterns has been particularly impressive to me. The only point of comparison I can draw is Sternberg, who has received proper appreciation for this visual approach. As with everything else in The Reckless Moment, this thicket of lines and shadows serves to redouble the high-octane discombobulation at the heart of the film. 

And most significantly, Ophüls does all of this without being ostentatious about it. It's possible to watch The Reckless Moment for the action and not even notice is remarkable formal construction. If classic auteurism is a matter of transfiguring middling ideas through the sheer force of style, few films I can think of fit the bill so perfectly.