Consider the main features of Ophuls' visual style: especially the restlessly moving camera, at a distance from the actors, with its craning and tracking shots going in circles, or back and forth, or following the characters up and down elaborate staircases. Consider, too, the cluttered mise-en-scene: the ornate decors with heavy use of glass and mirrors. What are the effects of this insistent visual stylization?
Consider how the film continually moves between present and past, spectacle and memory, and artifice and actuality. The story is conveyed to us through various forms of presentation, including the Circus Master's theatrical narration, the circus re-enactments, and a series of flashbacks, not always in chronological order. What do we actually know about the career of Lola Montes? Is she really the femme fatale the Circus Master presents her as being? How do we separate truth from fiction in her story?
What is the status of time and temporality in the film? How does the past intrude upon the present?
What do we make of the character of Lola Montes? Martine Carol's performance has often been criticized as cold and unengaging, and in fact she was not Ophuls' first choice for the role. Nonetheless, Ophuls seems unconcerned with the traditional structures of identification between the protagonist and the audience. Just what is our attitude towards Lola, then? Do we see her the same way the circus audience in the film does? If not, then how do we regard her?
Is Ophuls' attitude towards romantic love an idealizing one, an ironic one, or a combination of both?