The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
Ernst Lubitsch’s “The Shop Around the Corner”
Thematic Elements:
Ernst Lubitsch’s The Shop Around the Corner opens with a group of characters discussing either how expensive everything is or how they can’t help but participate in the buying of things around them. The group of characters are all employees for the titular shop, Matuschek and Co. Pepi discusses how the wife of their boss and owner of the store, Mrs. Matuschek, continuously asked him the previous evening to run errands traveling to different storefronts and buying her things. The second conversation is between Pirovitch and Flora as they discuss how much Pirovitch’s boy is doing after being sick, however the cost of seeing the doctor was enormously expensive. When asked about her new silver fox, Ilona comments that she had to buy it because she couldn’t resist. Alfred’s first lines are him asking Pepi to go get him a soda. Lubitsch’s opening presents a world in which all the characters can talk about is buying things and at what cost. Not only is their topic of daily conversations the act of participating in a capital market, but they must also come to these discussions through their profession of working in the local shop. We are not able to truly know each of the characters, we only know how they spend money in their society, we can only really view them as customers – spenders in a market. This is how the characters must view people in their life as well, due to their position in the shop – they must treat everyone as a customer so as to best sell to them. The characters must present themselves to the outside world in a very specific way, as they attempt to be the best salesmen they can be to everyone around them. They must also bend over backwards to try and not imply any sort of slights on their employers, especially in front of their brownnosing co-worker, Vadas. It is apparent that their employer, Mr. Matuschek, really only wants to hear things that align with his pre-existing views. He gets upset at Alfred for opposing the purchase of a music box for cigarettes that he bought in mass to be sold in the store. However, he is very pleased by Vadas, who tells him that this purchase is an excellent purchase, only really telling this falsehood to get into his good graces and pander to him, which ends up being good for him as he gets a raise later in the film. Once Klara asks for a job, she shows just how good she is at manipulating people into buying things by telling a lady that the cigarette box that plays music is actually a chocolate box, and the music plays to warn you not to keep eating chocolate – to which Klara gets hired and works under Alfred. Even under the cool and collected Alfred, him and Klara develop a frustrating relationship as the two of them cannot agree on anything. Klara even points out that Alfred is upset because she shares different opinions and perspectives about things than he does, and because she is his subordinate, rather than seeing this a respectful difference in understanding, he sees it as insubordination and her just being outright difficult. All the employees must conform themselves to present personas in which they must tell people what they want to hear. They must continue to function in this way because the alternative is to not have work anymore – during a time in which unemployment was through the roof. This trapping forces them to become someone other than themselves – pandering and selling falsehoods to the people around them. Alfred even ends up getting fired because he does not pander and present himself as a ‘yes man’ to Mr. Matuschek. Mr. Matuschek’s power over the others allows him to conform the reality around him to his own ultimate truths, disallowing any individuality or variance from his views. In the scene in which Alfred is leaving the shop for good after just getting fired, the leaving is treated like a death, mournful and solemn. Lubitsch uses this scene to show us a world in which getting fired is equivalent as dying – thereby reinforcing the reason for the conformist behavior of all the characters. Another scene of note is the scene in which the characters all receive bonuses for Christmas. It is a scene which displays the characters having the only moment in the film in which they feel that they have value – the money makes up for the feverish obedience they must put forth every day. The characters live in a world in which they cannot escape from – a world in which they are told their value through their bonuses, a world in which they must conform or die, a world in which they are not individuals but rather extensions and yes men to their superiors. However, we are eventually able to see through all of this to get at the heart of these characters and their real true selves – and discover that all these characters greatly desire real human connection. This is done by the correspondence that Alfred and Klara share, albeit without them knowing they are actually speaking to each other. Alfred and Klara leave anonymous correspondence to each other, telling each other their deepest internal feelings and human emotions. They eventually fall for the person they believe to be represented in the letters. Alfred eventually finds out that Klara is behind the letters only to attempt and fail at making a real human connection with her sans the anonymous correspondence. He uses his talent for manipulation and sales to convince her that the person in her letters are not they are cracked up to be and that he is the person she should be engaging with. The two of them eventually realize that they are more alike than their salesman-selves are and get together at the end of the film. Even Mr. Matuschek is shown to desire real human connection at the end of the film when he attempts to invite people over for Christmas dinner – thereby linking his actions throughout the film to his yearning for that connection. Lubitsch presents us a world in which people must make themselves salesmen, suppressing their innermost thoughts and opinions in order to pander to the customer and conform to their superior – reaching out for genuine human relationships that cannot present themselves naturally in their own daily life.
Camerawork:
The Lubitsch Touch is working to great effect in this film. All of the characters are presenting themselves with an outward façade of who they really are, all the while the audience can see that they are actually lonely people, making all of their actions make sense to this internal desire for connection. Lubitsch uses a camera that seems to glide throughout the store as scenes unfold. The audience is presented the story as if we were a customer in the store who was watching the machinations of the daily lives of the employees. Rather, Lubitsch makes you feel like an employee yourself rather than a customer – as you get to lean in on all the gossip and complaining done by the characters. Lubitsch welcomes you into the store and lets you be keen on the connections between the characters but withholds just enough information so that you are learning information just as the characters do. As an audience, you do not know more than the characters know and are only given pieces of information just at the same moment they are. This allows you to feel as close to them as your coworker, allowing you to notice the subtleties that make them unique beyond their status as a vendor. This allows you to see both the fake persona that they present and their real selves that they keep restrained.
Best Shot:
The best shots of the film come in the scene in which Alfred finds out that the woman he has fallen for in his letters is actually Klara. He is aware that it is her, but she is not aware that he is him. He then begins to try and make some sort of connection with her, trying to get her to talk to him and see him – attempting this rather than coming clean about being the pen pal possibly because he wants to see if she could like him anyway, after all she likes him in the letters. The first shot shows him outside the shot looking at her waiting on him – the glass literally separates the two.
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