Ernst Lubitsch
Ernst Lubitsch
Rosita (1923)
The Smiling Lieutenant (1931)
In Ernst Lubitsch's first ever American film, he teams up with Mary Pickford for "Rosita." The film showcased Lubitsch's talents for visual aesthetics, displaying set pieces of historical perportions. On top of this, it skyrocketed him to national success, allowing him the opportunity to make more and more big-budget Hollywood films.
Ernst Lubitsch's "The Merry Widow" is one of the many film musicals Lubitsch did for MGM. Based on the 1905 operetta, it tells the story of a playboy military captain who is ordered by the king of Marshovia to court and marry a rich widow who owns a large portion of the kingdom, in order to prevent her from leaving. At its root, it is the story of a man who shows a woman the joys of sexual liberation while the woman shows the man the joys of monogamy and intimacy. These two charactes are able to provide each other with perspective they have never had before.
"Design for Living" envisions a scenario in which two men share the same woman - or rather, a woman gleefully has two lovers. Obvious hijinks ensue, however, as the story finds this woman caught between her artistic pursuits. Should she go commerical and make advertisements for a better financial situation? Or should she hold tightly to her artistic integrity and do what she loves? Many might think this choice is represented by the two men, but no! It's actually a choice between the ad executive giving her the job and...the TWO men! After all, why can't a woman have it all?
In the 1931 Ernst Lubitsch MGM musical, "The Smiling Lieutenant," a lieutenant is trapped in a relationship with a royal princess - all because he smiled at her. However, Lubitsch uses this screwball situation to exploit something deeper: the incredible privilege by the aristocracy creates a complete gap in understanding between them and the common people. The royal family's total misunderstandings of every situation highlight this notion, leading the viewer to question how detached the varying classes are from each other.
Marlene Dietrich in "Angel" is a woman caught between the person she is now and the person she used to be. The men in her life have their own perspective on who she is and what she represents to them. Her lover must come to the conclusion that the whore he knows is actually an angel of a woman, while her husband must reconcile with that fact that his angelic wife used to be a whore. Ernst Lubitsch was a director very interested in the distorted way men percieve women, and "Angel" is no exception.
Ernst Lubitsch's final film before his death, "Cluny Brown," portrays Jennifer Jones as Cluny, a liberated woman in more ways that one who desperately desires to be a plumber and 'unclog' some pipes. The euphemism here by Lubitsch is her sexual liberation. Cluny goes to stay at an English manor, only for her liberations to be, well...UNliberated. In this stinging critique by Lubitsch, "Cluny Brown" examines a society stuck in its ways. The adventurous freedom by Cluny becomes restricted by an English social structure of control. This stuck-up society won't let the lower-class Cluny be her natural self, they look down on her because of her social status, they restrict her ability to be autonomous, and they restrict her sexual freedom. "Cluny Brown" is an examination of the ways in which modern society is stuck...if only there was someone who could unclog these clogged pipes!
A story that encompasses a man's life from the age of 14 until his death, "Heaven Can Wait" is about life, love, and loss. Even though "Cluny Brown' was Ernst Lubitsch's last completed film, this one felt like his swan song. The film takes the form of a biopic but applies its conventions to a character of no significance or importance. In doing this, Lubitsch takes everyday events and conveys the pretensions that biopics exaggeratedly place on them to make events of little or no importance significant in themselves. A man, who is about to enter heaven, tries to convince St. Peter that he, in fact, deserves hell. To prove this, he recounts his entire life. We watch as the beautiful stark colors of the beginning eventually fade into unsaturated colors at the end. Lubitsch illuminates a man's life to demonstrate the changing of time, life becoming death, and love enduring.
Ernst Lubitsch's pre-WWII film "Ninotchka" is a film that displays a divide between individuals and their respective societies, while also demonstrating how those separations can become melded together. Ninotchka is a hard-nosed Russian diplomat trying to sell jewels belonging to the state of Russia, while a carefree playboy American tries to argue that the jewels are privately-owned individual property. With this film, Lubitsch focuses on the relationship between east and west, communism and capitalism, and love and politics. In the beginning, each character is firmly associated with their respective culture and identity. However, as romance blooms, the characters start to integrate the other's culture into their own way of thinking. What emerges are questions invovling identity, culture, and perspective - and how those things are malleable.
In Ernst Lubitsch's 1932 Great Depression comedy-of-manners, "Trouble in Paradise," a man must choose between being a jewel thief with one woman, or working a steady job under another. One presents him with the element of danger, while also allowing him to be his scoundrelous self. The other provides security, but at the cost of being overworked and confined all day. In both situations, however, he is forced to leach off others for money. Is it worth it to sell yourself for your own security? In the aftermath of economic collapse, these sort of questions were being asked in a capitalist America. When a burgeoning economic babylon turns into a landscape in which one must choose to be a free criminal or a trapped conformist, there truly is trouble in paradise.
"The Shop Around the Corner" is an Ernst Lubitsch film about shop employee. For this group of shop employees, everything is about buying and selling. Because of this, we never really know who the characters are. In a capitalist market, their sole concern is selling customers things they don't need while trying to suck up to their prickly boss to keep their employment (in a world in which people are losing employment left and right). However, as romance blooms, the characters (and the viewer) begin to see these characters for who they really are. Rather than seeing everything in terms of the dollar sign, natural emotionality begins to bloom. With "The Shop Around the Corner," Lubitsch shows us a reflection of American life: people who must make themselves salesmen, suppressing their innermost thoughts and opinions in order to pander to the customer and conform to the superior.
In this laugh-out-loud wartime comedy starring Jack Benny and Carole Lambard, Ernst Lubitsch takes a shot at the Nazis. "To Be or Not to Be" depicts the Nazi occupation of Poland. Who will put a stop to this incompetent, foolish, and self-aggrandizing regime? Why, a group of incompetent, foolish, and self-aggrandizing troupe of actors, of course. By having villianous Nazis go up against these vapid performers, Lubitsch demonstrates how little difference there is between the two, performances and all. While most anti-Nazi propoganda American films at the time were portraying Nazis as cold-blooded stoic monsters, Lubitsch chose a different route and portrayed them as something far more human. This sense of not only humanity, but mockery, gives the viewer the perception that these terrorists are as equally fallible as we are - and can certainly be overcome.
RANKED:
11. Rosita (1923)
In Ernst Lubitsch's first ever American film, he teams up with Mary Pickford for "Rosita." The film showcased Lubitsch's talents for visual aesthetics, displaying set pieces of historical perportions. On top of this, it skyrocketed him to national success, allowing him the opportunity to make more and more big-budget Hollywood films.
10. The Merry Widow (1934)
Ernst Lubitsch's "The Merry Widow" is one of the many film musicals Lubitsch did for MGM. Based on the 1905 operetta, it tells the story of a playboy military captain who is ordered by the king of Marshovia to court and marry a rich widow who owns a large portion of the kingdom, in order to prevent her from leaving. At its root, it is the story of a man who shows a woman the joys of sexual liberation while the woman shows the man the joys of monogamy and intimacy. These two charactes are able to provide each other with perspective they have never had before.
9. Design for Living (1933)
"Design for Living" envisions a scenario in which two men share the same woman - or rather, a woman gleefully has two lovers. Obvious hijinks ensue, however, as the story finds this woman caught between her artistic pursuits. Should she go commerical and make advertisements for a better financial situation? Or should she hold tightly to her artistic integrity and do what she loves? Many might think this choice is represented by the two men, but no! It's actually a choice between the ad executive giving her the job and...the TWO men! After all, why can't a woman have it all?
8. The Smiling Lieutenant (1931)
In the 1931 Ernst Lubitsch MGM musical, "The Smiling Lieutenant," a lieutenant is trapped in a relationship with a royal princess - all because he smiled at her. However, Lubitsch uses this screwball situation to exploit something deeper: the incredible privilege by the aristocracy creates a complete gap in understanding between them and the common people. The royal family's total misunderstandings of every situation highlight this notion, leading the viewer to question how detached the varying classes are from each other.
7. Angel (1937)
Marlene Dietrich in "Angel" is a woman caught between the person she is now and the person she used to be. The men in her life have their own perspective on who she is and what she represents to them. Her lover must come to the conclusion that the whore he knows is actually an angel of a woman, while her husband must reconcile with that fact that his angelic wife used to be a whore. Ernst Lubitsch was a director very interested in the distorted way men percieve women, and "Angel" is no exception.
6. Cluny Brown (1946)
Ernst Lubitsch's final film before his death, "Cluny Brown," portrays Jennifer Jones as Cluny, a liberated woman in more ways that one who desperately desires to be a plumber and 'unclog' some pipes. The euphemism here by Lubitsch is her sexual liberation. Cluny goes to stay at an English manor, only for her liberations to be, well...UNliberated. In this stinging critique by Lubitsch, "Cluny Brown" examines a society stuck in its ways. The adventurous freedom by Cluny becomes restricted by an English social structure of control. This stuck-up society won't let the lower-class Cluny be her natural self, they look down on her because of her social status, they restrict her ability to be autonomous, and they restrict her sexual freedom. "Cluny Brown" is an examination of the ways in which modern society is stuck...if only there was someone who could unclog these clogged pipes!
5. Heaven Can Wait (1943)
A story that encompasses a man's life from the age of 14 until his death, "Heaven Can Wait" is about life, love, and loss. Even though "Cluny Brown' was Ernst Lubitsch's last completed film, this one felt like his swan song. The film takes the form of a biopic but applies its conventions to a character of no significance or importance. In doing this, Lubitsch takes everyday events and conveys the pretensions that biopics exaggeratedly place on them to make events of little or no importance significant in themselves. A man, who is about to enter heaven, tries to convince St. Peter that he, in fact, deserves hell. To prove this, he recounts his entire life. We watch as the beautiful stark colors of the beginning eventually fade into unsaturated colors at the end. Lubitsch illuminates a man's life to demonstrate the changing of time, life becoming death, and love enduring.
4. Ninotchka (1939)
Ernst Lubitsch's pre-WWII film "Ninotchka" is a film that displays a divide between individuals and their respective societies, while also demonstrating how those separations can become melded together. Ninotchka is a hard-nosed Russian diplomat trying to sell jewels belonging to the state of Russia, while a carefree playboy American tries to argue that the jewels are privately-owned individual property. With this film, Lubitsch focuses on the relationship between east and west, communism and capitalism, and love and politics. In the beginning, each character is firmly associated with their respective culture and identity. However, as romance blooms, the characters start to integrate the other's culture into their own way of thinking. What emerges are questions invovling identity, culture, and perspective - and how those things are malleable.
3. Trouble in Paradise (1932)
In Ernst Lubitsch's 1932 Great Depression comedy-of-manners, "Trouble in Paradise," a man must choose between being a jewel thief with one woman, or working a steady job under another. One presents him with the element of danger, while also allowing him to be his scoundrelous self. The other provides security, but at the cost of being overworked and confined all day. In both situations, however, he is forced to leach off others for money. Is it worth it to sell yourself for your own security? In the aftermath of economic collapse, these sort of questions were being asked in a capitalist America. When a burgeoning economic babylon turns into a landscape in which one must choose to be a free criminal or a trapped conformist, there truly is trouble in paradise.
2. The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
"The Shop Around the Corner" is an Ernst Lubitsch film about shop employee. For this group of shop employees, everything is about buying and selling. Because of this, we never really know who the characters are. In a capitalist market, their sole concern is selling customers things they don't need while trying to suck up to their prickly boss to keep their employment (in a world in which people are losing employment left and right). However, as romance blooms, the characters (and the viewer) begin to see these characters for who they really are. Rather than seeing everything in terms of the dollar sign, natural emotionality begins to bloom. With "The Shop Around the Corner," Lubitsch shows us a reflection of American life: people who must make themselves salesmen, suppressing their innermost thoughts and opinions in order to pander to the customer and conform to the superior.
1. To Be or Not to Be (1942)
In this laugh-out-loud wartime comedy starring Jack Benny and Carole Lambard, Ernst Lubitsch takes a shot at the Nazis. "To Be or Not to Be" depicts the Nazi occupation of Poland. Who will put a stop to this incompetent, foolish, and self-aggrandizing regime? Why, a group of incompetent, foolish, and self-aggrandizing troupe of actors, of course. By having villianous Nazis go up against these vapid performers, Lubitsch demonstrates how little difference there is between the two, performances and all. While most anti-Nazi propoganda American films at the time were portraying Nazis as cold-blooded stoic monsters, Lubitsch chose a different route and portrayed them as something far more human. This sense of not only humanity, but mockery, gives the viewer the perception that these terrorists are as equally fallible as we are - and can certainly be overcome.
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