SOURCE: "Masochistic Performance and Female Subjectivity in Letter from an Unknown Woman," in Cinema Journal, Vol. 33, No. 3, Spring, 1994, pp. 35-57.

In the following essay, Studiar examines the masochistic personality traits of the character of Lisa in both Ophuls's film Letter from an Unknown Woman and the original story by Stefan Zweig.

Shame! With what joy would I not search for you and make myself your servant forever, if you could give me that which this little grave [of son Sacha] encloses of my happiness? But you, too, are powerless before fate. What you promise, you cannot give. Memories!

—The Confessions of Wanda von Sacher-Moser My child is dead, our child—now I have no one else in the world to love but you. But who are you to me, you who never, ever recognise me, who pass over me as though you were crossing a stream, and tread...