Letter from an Unknown Woman

A love story set in Vienna. A famous pianist comes home at midnight. A letter is waiting for him. It begins: by the time you read this I shall be dead. The writer is Lisa. She met him years ago as a child; they lived in the same building, and that day he passed her and went up the stairs. From that day she built her life around him. The film follows the letter. Lisa growing up, meeting him twice, and his failing to remember her each time are told in order. The pianist is not a bad man; he simply carries nothing. The film's strength is that asymmetry: one person's whole life against a few nights another does not remember. The director's form supports it: the camera is constantly moving, and staircases, glass and curtains keep coming between the characters. The source is Stefan Zweig's novella. Joan Fontaine plays Lisa and Louis Jourdan the pianist. Max Ophüls directed. It attracted little attention on release and was later counted among the finest Hollywood melodramas. One of the high points of its genre for anyone who likes classical melodrama and formal mastery. For a viewer hoping for a happy ending, the film states its ending at the start and walks towards it.