SOURCE: "My Favorite Movie—Madame de" in Favorite Movies: Critic's Choice, edited by Philip Nobile, Macmillan Publishing Co. Inc., 1973, pp. 146-59.

In the following essay, Harcourt examines his favorite film, Ophuls's Madame de . . . .

What is my favorite movie? Difficult though it may be to answer such a question, I find it easier than choosing the top ten films of all time. For I have long felt it should be possible to separate the objects of one's affection from those that one recognizes as having great value. Of course, Battleship Potemkin is a very great film, but is it anyone's favorite, at least nowadays? A favorite movie, to my mind, implies a film for which one feels a particular sympathy, whatever its eventual worth. To write about one's favorite movie is thus to write more personally than judiciously. It is to share one's excitement about the inner rhythms of...