Letter From An Unknown Woman

Maybe at high school? Or perhaps a friend you knew? Secretly admiring someone. It becomes an all-consuming crush. The recipient never suspected the depth of those feelings. Even if there's a brief fling. Then, one day, it's all irrevocably in the past - and all is revealed! Serves them right...

Or imagine you've been on the receiving end. Someone gorgeous turns round, nonchalantly, saying they were nuts about you a long time ago. And you missed your chance! Damn!

Hollywood melodrama tends to go one of two ways. Post-heartbreak, the bad guy will look deep within, find love, and all will end happily. Or else a bittersweet finale will evoke empathy with the protagonist's suffering.

Letter From An Unknown Woman works well as a tearjerker, but its psychological depth is a more frightening element that makes it more profound. You can go away with a warm fuzzy glow, or you may take a moment's reflection. Would the emotions we felt in the film be duplicated in real life? Or would they be turned on their head?

Teenage Lisa is infatuated with a famous pianist next door. She devotes her life to becoming the woman for him. Studies the lives of great composers. Attends dance lessons to become more graceful. When a family move separates her geographically, she remains true in her heart, yearning for an encounter that will bring them together. But fate is unkind. A one-night stand and they are separated again. Years later, when Lisa is married to an older man, there is the possibility of another encounter. Will he recognise her?

Lisa's story is told in tragic flashback. At the start of the movie, her lover opens a missive that reveals all – and which begins, "By the time you read this letter, I may be dead." A grand romance – like the operas of which director Max Ophuls was so fond. Feminist critics have praised the film for its detailed exploration of female romantic desire. It also has a strong suit being emphatically told from the woman's point of view. Lisa (played by Joan Fontaine at her best) creates her own world. The object of her desire is a mere supporting role. The camera tracks Lisa. The dialogue revolves around her (for it is her recollection). The choice of lighting and lush music is always kind to her. Hers is the voiceover. It is only when the final credits have rolled that we may disengage and look at her 'version' more critically.

For instance, she waits "night after night" beneath the window of her beloved, hoping to bump into him. What would we think today of someone who did that? She makes no attempt to tell him of her love. She meekly tolerates his careless attitude towards her, glorifies her silent suffering, and cannot even wink seductively to engage in a little interactive flirting. Lisa immolates herself in all seriousness on the altar of his caprice. And we felt duly sorry for her.

Viewed like this, it is a story of masochism. Not of the sexual fetish kind; but emotionally she is a Venus in Furs. She presents herself as having no choice - and yet it is her abject choices that doom her to failure. Even with such a poor pick of available mates, her situation should not have been hopeless. She shows herself strong-willed (rejecting parental preference for an attractive suitor). She is capable (finding a rich husband to support her). Yet is it any wonder that her attitude to the man she loves results in him treating her as little better than a bit of skirt? In the original story, she was a prostitute. In our film (due no doubt to a prevailing censorship code) she is not seen accepting money. But we are never permitted to observe her from any point of view except her own. If we were, it might stand to reason that her man would not remember her as standing out much from other 'ladies of the night' that he took home. Or one of his numerous fans. She never tells him anything of herself. Not even how he has affected her in a life and death way. To her, she is the vibrant angel entering his life. The most devoted woman he could desire. But to him, she is monochrome. An unknown woman.

The iconic way these archetypes are handled is not the only reason why Letter From An Unknown Woman rises from being a film dismissed by critics to one that is now regarded as a classic. Ophuls' mise-en-scène, his gloriously framed shots to highlight Lisa's story, the careful use of horizontal and vertical lines, the lighting that makes her shine throughout while the man is portrayed as almost vampiric, the lingering camerawork that sweeps carefully recreated Vienna into Lisa's lyrical imagining, the subtle give-aways in the dialogue that eventually belie our initial interpretation. Irony is distanced by visual feasts. We see one film then look back on another. It is a story of 'if onlys'. "If only you could have shared those moments, if only you could have recognised what was always yours, could have found what was never lost. If only..." But it is Lisa herself who made it into one big 'if only'.

Even Lisa's moral approach cannot be excused, the way our manipulated sympathies would incline us to. She dismisses the concept of honour put to her by her husband. Honour, as we have been told earlier, is a luxury only afforded to gentlemen. Her (gentleman) husband's sense of 'honour' is made worthless by false assumption and murderous jealousy. It is little more than arrogance. But his short-sightedness is only slightly less than the willfully blindfolded tunnel-vision of our main protagonists.

Perhaps the greatest value of Letter From An Unknown Woman - beyond its cinematic scholarship - is that in recognising the flaw of Lisa's character we can see when wish-fulfilment becomes self-defeat. To dream of success without putting the basic steps in place is a masochism which we perhaps all inflict on ourselves in some degree at some time. If not in love, then with other hopes and dreams. But, unlike our limited lifetimes, a film may last many generations. Time enough for audiences to now appreciate the greatness Ophuls so painfully created. To understand the meaning behind the film's ellipsis. As with the movie's mute manservant, 'Letter' hides then reveals something we knew all along. We finally see how the woman was 'unknown'. We see her as Stefan, her adored, and himself hopelessly self-deluded, saw her.

It was unloved on opening, but Letter From An Unknown Woman is a genuine work of art. Nowadays it regularly features on lists of the top 100 movies of all time, and sometimes the top ten.