Ernst Lubitsch's American Comedy
William Paul
Language: English
Pages: 367
ISBN: 023105680X
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Ernst Lubitsch was one of the most original minds ever to have worked in Hollywood. This pathbreaking study places his work in this time and relates it to the incomparable era of the thirties and forties, the period during which his greatest films appeared. The interesting, well-written text is illustrated by many carefully selected production stills taken either during rehearsal or actual filming.
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beforehand. In announcing the death, the scene 1 e prese tstht!rnost explicit definition of the film's vision of death. Henry has just found out that Martha has an illness, but she minimizes its importance. They go out into the main hallway of the �ansion to dance in celebration of their anniversary: in a medium shot of the two dancing they move / past the doorway into the ballroom through which other dancers may '-be seen, the camera moving with Henry and Martha. As they dance � into an isolated
Marshall) of a robbery in the hotel which was in fact ·cornmitted by Caston himself. Lily and Gaston are about to engage in their pick poc:keting duel that will initiate their love affair.- Note the Old World orn'ateness of background that will contrast with the sleek-lined Art Deco of Mariette's man Trouble in Paradise. MUSEUM OF MODERN ART/COURTESY OF PARAMOUNT PICfURES the window. Tom (Fredric March) tells Gilda (Miriam Hopkins) that he have to go to London for the rehearsals and opening
contradictions of hoped-for future to the surface with such openness and inno that journey's end for this midnight ride becomes more darkly lcertai'in for them than it had been for the thieves in Trouble in · following year Lubitsch would return to mus icals; once again would utilize a fantasy kingdom, but for the first time he would musical in a specific historical time. The doub le distancing of setting and historical period suggests that, on the surface at 86 THE ANARCHIC TOUCH: 1917-1933
the past this was made up the extravagant elegance of surface that crea ted sufficient vital itself to suggest a range of emotions und er "the frozen-faced which Archer Winsten thought the cast of Angel achieved York Post, November 4, ,937 ). change in performance in Angel may be attributed to Lu response to his material, an attempt to rend er all distinctions film m g�ey tones rather than in the crisp black-white opposi the e�rher films. In Lubitsch's Kammerspiel style the greatest tenswn may
·im.possilJil itV of projecting this perfectly balanced unity from a personal to a level. In its view of personal and social behavior, Ninotchka presents ' kind of double vision that recalls the ending of The Merry W;rlm,;: Both films contrast private and public resolutions with the rwo..t•ove,<< coming together in the isolated space of a jail cell in The JV�<>rrv Widow and a private hotel room in a foreign country in Ninoitchkaf But where The Merry Widow ends with the two lovers, Ninor'chl1ii
