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| Ernst
Lubitsch |
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| Director
/ Producer / Screenwriter / Editor |
| 1892 - 1947 |
| Born January 28,
Berlin, Germany |
| Key
Production Countries: USA, Germany
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Key Genres:
Comedy, Sophisticated Comedy, Romantic Comedy, Romance, Drama, Comedy
Drama, Farce, Musical, Period Film |
| Key
Collaborators: Hans Dreier (Production
Designer), Samson Raphaelson
(Screenwriter), Hanns Kraly (Screenwriter), Victor Milner
(Cinematographer), Werner R. Heymann (Composer), Edward Everett Horton
(Leading Player), Jeanette MacDonald (Leading Player), Ernest Vajda
(Screenwriter), William Shea (Editor),
W. Franke Harling (Composer) |
| Highly
Recommended:
Broken Lullaby (1932), Design
for Living (1933), Ninotchka (1939), The
Shop Around the Corner (1940), To Be or Not to Be (1942), Heaven Can Wait (1943) |
| Recommended: The
Oyster Princess (1919), The Marriage Circle (1924), The Patriot (1928), Trouble
in Paradise (1932), The Merry Widow (1934), Angel (1937) |
| Links: [
IMDB ] [
TCMDB ] [ All-Movie
Guide ] [
Film Reference ]
[ The Cinema of
Ernst Lubitsch ] [
Interview
with Louella Parsons (1922) ] [
Film
Forum: The Lubitsch Touch ] [
German Culture Article ] [
Close-Up Retrospective ] |
| Books: [
Herr Lubitsch Goes to Hollywood: German and American Film after World
War I ] [
Ernst
Lubitsch: Laughter in Paradise ] [ Passions
and Deceptions ] [ Ethics
and Social Criticism in the Hollywood Films of Erich von Stroheim, Ernst
Lubitsch and Billy Wilder ] [
Ernst Lubitsch's American Comedy ] [
Romantic Comedy in Hollywood, from Lubitsch to Sturges ] |
| DVD's:
[ Amazon
] |
| 1,000
Greatest Films: Trouble in Paradise
(1932), Design
for Living (1933), Angel (1937), Ninotchka (1939), The
Shop Around the Corner (1940), To Be or Not to Be (1942),
Heaven Can Wait (1943) |
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"As
Hollywood recedes, Lubitsch's role as a creative entrepreneur and
as the germ of European sophistication becomes more fascinating.
Considering the way he was rebuffed by Mary Pickford on his first
American film, Rosita, and so wittily mocked for his
Teutonic stubbornness, it is remarkable that he achieved such
eminence in Hollywood and that his reputation rested on the
supposed delicacy of "touch"." - David
Thomson (The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, 2002) |
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"After
joining Warner Brothers, he directed five films that firmly
established his thematic interests. The films were small in scale,
dealt openly with sexual and psychological relationships in and
out of marriage, refrained from offering conventional moral
judgments, and demystified women. As Molly Haskell and Marjorie
Rosen point out, Lubitsch created complex female characters who
were aggressive, unsentimental, and able to express their sexual
desires without suffering the usual pains of banishment or death."
- Greg
S. Faller (The St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia, 1998) |
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"Lubitsch
was always the least Germanic of German directors, as Lang
was the most Germanic. The critics were always so obsessed with
what Lubitsch naughtily left off the screen that they never fully
evaluated what was left on... Lubitsch was the last of the genuine
continentals let loose on the American continent, and we shall
never see his like again because the world he celebrated had died
- even before he did - everywhere except in his own memory." -
Andrew
Sarris (The American Cinema, 1968) |
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"The man with the cynical, delightful touch created an
aristocratic world of yesteryear, then poked fun at it. Lubitsch
could say volumes by implication and innuendo." -
William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978) |
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"I sometimes
make pictures which are not up to my standard, but then it can only
be said of a mediocrity that all his work is up to his standard."
- Ernst Lubitsch |
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"I let the
audience use their imaginations. Can I help it if they misconstrue
my suggestions?" - Ernst Lubitsch |
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