Design for Living (1933)

 Ernst Lubitsch’s “Design for Living”

Thematic Elements: 

In most of the Lubitsch films up until now, a character must choose between two people they are in love with, each person representing different paths and values in life. When watching this film, the quick assessment is that Gilda must choose between George, the painter and Tommy, the playwright. However, once you get to end of the story and the conclusion that Gilda has chosen both of the men to be with her, the main conflict was not actually choosing between these two individual men, but rather the choice is between these two men, and Max, the ad man. Gilda says at the beginning of the film that she is a commercial artist, represented by her sketch designs. The two choices she is given in the film represent the two different paths she can take with her art. She can keep going along the same path, in the she can keep being with Max. Because Max is an ad man, he represents the marketing and advertising avenue that art has a place in. She can find success in this advertising venture in that her work sells and she has a sense of security. A downside is that her work becomes compromised. As Max points out later in the film, the French people did not like Napoleon portrayed in a humorous way, so it was changed to Caesar. The very nature of advertising and marketing is to give the people what they want to win them over with whatever the product is, so there comes a sense of giving up creative freedom in pursuit of pandering. The other option given to Gilda is the option of George & Tommy. George the painter and Tommy the playwright represents a far more artistic and noble avenue for Gilda to take in her work. She can use her artistic vision to help invigorate the artistic pursuits of Tommy and George, making their work better and more digestible to their audience. Gilda allows Tommy and George to take the ego out of their work to accommodate for a larger audience, a key to her commercial sensibilities. However, the downside is that she does not have the same economic and financial security she has with Max. Like Gilda, us the audience are trying to figure out which man Gilda should give up in order to be with the other. But as the ending points out, Gilda can have both men, both of whom she is in love with. She doesn’t have to choose between the two arts, the choice all along was between art and marketing. 

Camerawork: 

Lubitsch uses his camera to distract from the thematic elements of the film. Rather than make the narrative hinge on the audience’s understanding of philosophies of where to place your artistic pursuits, he instead focuses on the romantic and sexual chemistries of the film. Making the men incredibly dapper, the madame incredibly desirable in her silk dresses, and the conversations and innuendoes between all three as sexual charged as Hollywood’s pre-code sensibilities at the time, Lubitsch leads the audience’s mind into the gutters rather than to a canvas.  In making the audience care more about sexual desires of the characters, Lubitsch is pulling the audience along with the intoxication of Gilda’s newfound artistic pursuits. Sexual desire and romantic happiness give the relative feelings of the thematic notion of artistic fulfillment. This contrast exceptionally with Gilda’s relationship with Max. Where Gilda’s association with the other two men get the audience hot and bothered, the same cannot be said for when she is with Max. When she is with Max, the sexual and romantic undertones are completely taken away and replaced with something more rigid, structured, and stiff. All of these elements lend itself to the feeling Gilda has when her work is used for marketing purposes. It presents stability and security, but it does not offer the same intoxication of the personal fulfillment she receives when she focuses her work on the arts. The lack of sexual and romantic chemistry equals the lack of excitement in her work. Lubitsch uses the intense feelings of attraction (or the lack thereof) between the four characters to provide a more personal sensibility that an audience can relate to illustrate the feelings of choices Gilda must make in where to put her artistic career. 

Best Shot: 

One of the best shots in the film is when Gilda lays on the bed telling George that she is no gentleman. The shot itself looks like one of George’s paintings. This best illustrates that the insertion of Gilda into George’s life has dramatically affecting his art. Gilda’s artistic vision, represented by Lubitsch as her sexual appeal, is infectious and palpable even to the audience. Both her sexual and her artistic expression is clearly felt in the three men in her life.