Paul Thomas Anderson on The Earrings of Madame de . . .
If you’ve seen Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood, or virtually any other film directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, you know that he is enamored of ornate tracking shots. So it’s no surprise that he’s a fan of Max Ophuls, often identified as cinema’s preeminent practitioner of this craft. Anderson contributed an introduction to Ophuls and his visual flourishes to our special edition of Ophuls’s The Earrings of Madame de . . . . In this two-and-a-half-minute clip from that supplement, he looks at the film’s first shot, with its gorgeous, psychologically motivated camera work. Wedded to the charisma of star Danielle Darrieux, the camera, Anderson says ”moves with her eyes.”